Reading fluency is just an app away with Learning Touch Sight Words Pro. The app features over 300 words most commonly used in the English language, and it focuses on core vocabulary all children will need.
Use Sight Words Pro to develop:
- Fine motor control
- Letter recognition
- Phonemic awareness
- Word recognition
- Reading fluency
Sight Words Pro’s uncluttered and user-friendly design makes it simple to use, but it does have some very sophisticated settings, which further boosts its uses.
In the settings of the app, you can make many choices, which will affect the way the app works. Choose phonics or letter names to select whether the app announces the phonetic sound of the letters or the actual letter name. You can put the word order from shortest to longest, alphabetical, or random. You can also change the length of the longest word (from 3 letters up to 10) or select lower, upper, or capitalized case. Sight Words Pro also allows you to select only the words you want to work on, or you can choose them all.
The Sight Words Pro home screen shows the different levels which you can play; select from All Words, Pre-primer, Primer, Grade 1, Grade 2, Grade 3, and Nouns. When you go to the first word screen, the word is announced; you will see boxes at the top with the letters of the word, an image of the word, and individual boxes with letters to drag into the boxes at the top. Click on image and the app will repeat the word. Touch letter and you hear the phonetic sound of that letter (unless you have selected the letter name option). Drag the letters to the appropriate box, and you again hear the phonetic sound. If you touch the letters in the boxes at the top, you hear the phonetic sound and see the letters shaking, which gives a hint as to which letter to move to the appropriate box. Once all letters are in place, the app announces each letter’s sound and then says the entire word.
Additional changes in the settings allow you to make Sight Words Pro more challenging. You can change words from left to right, so the user has to spell the word correctly from left to right in order. You can also make it more difficult by turning off letter hints and speech (you will not see the word in the boxes at the top and you will not hear speech as you tap the letters).
The images of Sight Words Pro were provided by Mindspeak, developed by linguists and speech-language pathologists for AACs or speech generating devices. Even difficult words to illustrated are included, which improves the power of this app.
Sight Words Pro is available for both iPhone and iPad and costs $9.99.
