Appy Friday ~ Real Vocabulary from VSC

Virtual Speech Center's "Real Vocabulary" app was recently released and has many activities for targeting core curriculum vocabulary!  This addition to iTherapy from VSC provides work on vocabulary through Antonyms, Synonyms, Definitions, Multiple Meanings, & Idioms with the ability to add your own vocabulary.

 It's definitely difficult to find core curriculum apps for vocabulary.  Here are more of the features from this app:

From the title page, you can go directly into the app by pressing "start".  You can also access the reinforcer games by pressing "play games".  Settings, reports, information, and other VSC apps can be found from here as well.

 For each student, you choose which activity/activities they are going to work on and on what level(s). Included are K/1, 2/3, and 4/5 levels for each activity.

For each level, you can choose receptive (with possible answers provided) or expressive without options given.  You also have the ability to record and playback answers given by clients.  with receptive, tracking is automatic.  If the student doesn't choose the correct response, you have the ability to have them choose until they get it correct.  However - this does impact their percentage so you may look into that before choosing this option. 

 Above you will see both the receptive and expressive options for antonyms.

Also included are definitions with photo cues.  You can add your own vocabulary to this section - perfect for classroom vocab.

 Idioms.

Multiple Meanings.

Synonyms.

Overall, this has been a good app that I use with my language students!  Here is my quick pros/improvements list:

Pros:

• Nice, colorful, realistic stimulus photos.
• Clear voice for instruction.
• Data tracking included in the app with the ability to print/e-mail the progress.
• Keeps data stored on the app for each student!
• You can change from receptive to expressive without exiting the game.
• The reinforcer games are motivating for students and can be turned on or off!
• You can customize by adding your own vocab.
• Overall a solid... great for SLPs with elementary and middle school language clients!

Improvements:

• There is currently a small glitch in the antonyms section - hopefully this will be updated in future releases.
• I wish there were an option to only count first attempts on the receptive sections.  The data is a little skewed if you typically only count 1st attempt in your data collection.

Overall a good new app!  It is currently available for $29.99 in the app store:

Disclosure: VSC provided a copy of this app for review.  No other compensation was provided and all opinions are that of the author.