App Review & Giveaway: Prep Positions

Prep Positions is one of the newer apps created by Smarty Ears and I had the great fortune of trying it out with my kiddos and reviewing it for you!   Smarty Ears provided the app for me to review; however, the opinions in this post are all mine.

Upon opening the app, you are greeted with a simple design allowing you access to report cards or to selecting players.  In player selection, you can determine if you will be using the app while working with a student individually or with a group of students.  The best part is that when working with groups, you can choose up to five players and each player can be working on a different skill level!  This app has up to 15 skill levels starting from basic prepositions such as up, on, by and increases in complexity to phrases such as because of, depending on, and up to.  When modifying and determining player level and skills for your student, you can also modify the game by shutting off specific prepositions in that level that they may have already mastered.  Additional modifications that can be made include modifying what stimuli phrases you want to and deselecting the others, modifying background to provide a more simplistic appearance (white background), turning on or off audio for phrases and answers, and a prompt to record responses.

For students who may be struggling readers, it provides the visual text, audio for the phrase/sentence, and audio for the possible prepositions to fill in the blank when you touch them.  It was so easy that some of my non-readers and early readers were able to use the app with reduced assistance.  When the student determines their answer, they simply drag the word to the blank spot in the sentence.  If it is not correct, the word will return to its spot.  When it is right, the word will remain in the sentence and a prompt will pop up to allow the student to record themselves saying the phrase/sentence.  This allows students to have visual, audio, and oral feedback!  Many of my students found that having the ability to record and listen was motivating and fun.  If a student is not sure which of the three possible responses the app provides, then they can touch the little question mark on the bottom right hand side of the screen and it will reduce the choices to only two. 

A screen pops up to encourage and reinforce students so that they know how many balls they have earned towards playing the game.  When setting up, you are able to decide when they will have access to the game by choosing to allow students to play the game after they have collected five balls or after the activity is completed. The reinforcement game is cute too! Students shoot a cannon ball to see how far you can make it fly and who can get it to go the furthest. 

In the report card area, you can see student progress by level, session, or by preposition.  The best part though is that this information can also be shared via email, Smarty Ears Therapy Report Center, and/or Dropbox.  That makes keeping all student data together that much easier (especially when using the Smarty Ears Therapy Report Center with multiple apps).

Why did I love this app? It was super user friendly, provided audio feedback for non-readers or students who struggle with reading, audio feedback had a more realistic human sound, works for groups up to 5 working at different complexity levels, kiddos found it motivating and enjoyable, and it made data collection easy! 

What suggestions do I have for improvements?  To be honest, I had to be very picky when thinking of suggestions.  Smarty Ears was VERY comprehensive with this app and they thought of practically everything including some very complex levels!  Here are my suggestion: incorporate a way to redirect to the game when you wanted for our students that need frequent reinforcement to keep focused on the task instead of waiting until they completed the entire activity or had five balls.

Overall Impressions:  I loved this app!  My student’s loved this app! My six year old daughter found the app on my I-Pad and thought it was just another game that I bought for her and said, “Thanks Mommy for my new game.  I love it!” Hmmm... I didn’t have the heart to tell her that it wasn’t a new game that I bought for her but one of my apps for work.  If that isn’t a good review out of the mouths of a little one, I do not know what more I could tell you about the app. 

You can get Prep Position from Smarty Ears at the App Store for $19 or enter the giveaway below for a chance to win the app!  Thanks to Smarty Ears for the additional code so that I can offer the app to one lucky winner!  Just enter the Rafflecopter below for your chance to win.  One winner will be chosen at random on Thursday, March 24^th.

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