This K-5 vocabulary app designed by a speech therapist can be helpful for struggling students to improve their receptive and expressive vocabulary skills, but it requires experienced adult support and students might not find it much fun. The free version enables an adult to sample the different types of questions, but users will need to pay to use it with a child. The complete version includes 1,500 words in five categories by grade level: antonyms, definitions, synonyms, idioms, multiple meanings, and definitions and can be used for multiple children. For each lesson, the adult will choose to either have the child practice listening or speaking. In the listening exercises, students can read and hear the question spoken, see a picture, and select the correct multiple choice answer. For expressive language, students must identify and speak the answer on their own, and the adult will tell them whether or not they answered correctly. There also is an option for the student to record answers. The voice is clear and the photos are attractive, but the app is not very enjoyable. The positive feedback is limited, while the negative feedback is a red X and a loud buzz. The incentives are three short, restaurant-themed games that are not very entertaining. Overall, a fine choice with nice tracking features to practice language skills, but parents should anticipate that the app is work for both parent and child.

• Provides sufficient and varied types of practice problems to maximize understanding and generalization of the targeted skill/concept
• Manufacturer claims alignment with Common Core/Known Standards
• Presents educational concepts accurately
• Explains answers so students can learn from mistakes
• Better for teaching the skill to new or struggling learners
• Better for practicing or refreshing the skill
• Skills are practiced through authentic, meaningful problems (not just rote practice)

• Appropriate for a broad age range to use and enjoy
• Subject matter and problems are relevant, interesting and authentic to students
• Visually appealing to children in the target age range
• Provides virtual rewards or incentives after meeting specified goals or objectives
• Provides a "break activity" between academic problem sets
• Offers ongoing, progressive challenge
• Overall - Enjoyable. Given the option, students would choose this option

• Has a free or trial version
• Provides teaching guidance for adults to support the child and set appropriate goals
• Provides an age-appropriate tutorial/first time users can work independently
• Student should be able to use independently after first use
• Has a multi-player option to foster in-person collaboration or cooperation
• Multiple users can save a profile
• Student graduates to the next level or topic only after meeting a benchmark
• Can play without sound and not distract others
• Students can save work between sessions
• Can effectively understand and monitor student's progress (email report or in product)
• Provides options to play in languages other than English/Good for ELL
• Presents information in multiple formats (voice over, pictures and text, etc.)
• Overall - Easy to use

• Attention
• Promotes purchases or upgrades to students
• Problems or examples are not interesting for the target age range
• Auditory Processing
• Verbal Memory
• Assumes specific knowledge or vocabulary without "look-up" options

The Real Vocabulary app is a comprehensive and flexible language program for kindergarten-5th grade students targeting core curriculum vocabulary*.

The Real Vocabulary app includes over 1500 pictures and over 5000 pre-recorded audio. The pro version of the app and the All Words in - app program allow the users to add their own words, pictures and audio recordings, making therapy more individualized and allowing school speech therapists to add their own curriculum based vocabulary.

The Real Vocabulary app offers both receptive and expressive tasks in the following categories:

- Antonyms (Kindergarten – 1st grade, 2nd- 3rd grades, 4th – 5th grades with total of 300 antonyms)

- Synonyms (Kindergarten – 1st grade, 2nd- 3rd grades, 4th – 5th grades with total of 300 synonyms)

- Definitions (Kindergarten – 1st grade, 2nd- 3rd grades, 4th – 5th grades with total of 300 definitions)

- Multiple Meanings (Kindergarten – 1st grade, 2nd- 3rd grades, 4th – 5th grades with total of 300 multiple meanings)

- Idioms (Kindergarten – 1st grade, 2nd- 3rd grades, 4th – 5th grades with total of 300 idioms)

In the receptive task, the picture with word stimulus is displayed and the student matches one of the four words that matches the stimulus. (E.g. what is another word for accurate? A) Happy B) Late C) True D) Correct)

In the expressive task, the picture with word stimulus is displayed and the student states his answer verbally (E.g. what is another word for almost?)

The pro version of the app and the ALL words in- app program include all the above categories however each category can be purchased separately as well. The users can try the free light version of the app with a few examples of each category and activity.

Students will be motivated to learn and practice thousands of words since they will be rewarded with three different games:

-Wobbly Waiter
-Sling Challenge
-Catch the Dish

The Real Vocabulary app is easy to navigate and allows users to employ several tools to perform the following:

-add additional photos and audio recording
-enter multiple students
-change settings
-save selected targets for the next session
-select auto-scoring
-select alternate counts for multiple students
-enable or disable written picture descriptions
-enable or disable special effect sounds
-audio record users’ responses
-track correct and incorrect responses
-view reports in table and graphical forms
-e-mail results at the end of the game

Author: Jennifer Rogers, M.A. CCC-SLP
Developed by: Virtual Speech Center