Practicing sight words is all fun and games with this app! Users hear, read, and spell words off the Dolch Word List. But that's not all! Players also get to create their own avatar, collect BINGO bugs, view their scores, and more within this excellent app.
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App Overview
How to Get Started:
- Tap Play on the main menu
- Choose a player slot; there are five player slots and one guest option
- Enter your name and choose boy or girl
- Customize your avatar by sliding the images to the left or right; touch done when you are satisfied with the appearance of your avatar
- Select a level: pre-primer, primer, first grade, second grade, third grade, nouns, or all words
- Choose between Word BINGO and Spelling Practice
- After completing Word BINGO, users have the option to play with their BINGO bugs, play again, select a new player, play Word Up, play Fling It, or view their report card
- After completing Spelling Practice, users can play a bonus game
Games:
Word BINGO
- The BINGO bug will say words out loud
- As the bug says each word, your job is to find the word on the BINGO board and tap it
- If you get four words correct vertically, horizontally, or diagonally, you get BINGO and the game is over
Spelling Practice
- First, the BINGO bug will say a word out loud
- Touch and drag the letters into the correct boxes to spell the word
- If you spell 10 words, you get to play a bonus game
- The spelling hint is turned on, but can be turned off in game settings
Word Up
- Similar to Tetris, players must tap the words spoken by the BINGO bug before the screen fills up
- Move the tablet side-to-side to move the blocks around and influence where they land
- If you click on the wrong word, you lose points and the block never goes away
Word Fling
- Given three choices, touch the word spoken by the BINGO bug
- A bug will appear where the word was; pull down on the bug to shoot it at the warp zone
- You have 100 seconds to get as many bugs as possible into the warp zone
- The game ends after 100 seconds, or when you incorrectly identify three words
Features:
- Players can collect BINGO bugs and play with them later by tapping them and shaking the tablet
- View the scoreboard to see the high scores
- Tap the how to play button to read instructions for each game; this information is geared toward teachers and adults
- Lively music and sound effects
Instructional Ideas
Have game time in class! Send pupils off with tablets to play the games on this app while working on their reading and word recognition skills.
Give class members specific tasks or goals for the games. For example, you might assign a certain level based on ability. Look at the player report card later on to see the words that particular students did well with, and had trouble with. Track their progress with high scores and by checking back on the report card.
Classroom Considerations
Once you have chosen Word BINGO or Spelling Practice, the only way to go back to the main menu is by tapping on Select New Player. There are no in-game home or back buttons.
In order to play any of the games, pupils will need to be able to hear the app. The games are dependent on audio.
There are no advertisements, no in-app purchases, and no data collection tools. Class data will be private.
Pros
- Includes four games that are engaging and educational
- Dolch Word List guides instruction
- Fun music and animation
- Open for differentiation
- Mulitple players can save their progress within the app
Cons
- None