Montessori Crosswords - Spelling With Phonics-Enabled Alphabet
By L'Escapadou
Open iTunes to buy and download apps.
Description
★ New-York Times - "The 3-year-old has learned to spell words through an app called Montessori Crosswords, her mother said"
★ Children's Technology Review - "Editor's Choice Award for Excellence in Design" - 4.8 stars out of 5 - "It is an extremely powerful early reading experience."
★ "Best literacy app in my opinion" - Sue, National Board Certified Teacher
★ Featured by Apple in "Apps for Learning to Read", "Apps for Learning to Write" & "Words for the Wise"
★ More than 100,000 units sold !
★ Used in schools to learn phonics and spelling !
Based on the proven Montessori learning method, Montessori Crosswords helps kids develop their reading, writing, and spelling skills by building words from a set of 320 word-image-audio-phonics combinations using a phonics-enabled movable alphabet.
Montessori Crosswords helps kids learn and understand two fundamental concepts:
➜ First, the app helps kids understand that words are made up of sounds or phonemes (phonemic awareness). For each word, your kids can touch the empty rectangles where letters must be dragged to complete the word, and hear the sound the corresponding letter produces.
➜ Secondly, the app helps kids memorize the phonics associated with letters by providing a phonics-enabled alphabet where kids can touch each letter and hear the associated phonic.
Montessori Crosswords allows you to select words according to their difficulty or sound categories:
➜ Level 1 displays a three-letter word with no difficulty for beginning readers (CVC words)
➜ Levels 2 and 3 offer more complex words that contains more complex phonics (as long vowels sounds or blends), and also offer the option to automatically create multi-word crosswords in tens of thousands of different combinations
➜ Alternately, you can choose from 44 sound categories (i.e. choose words that contain a specific sound (for example, long a, “k” sound, and so on).
To create an enjoyable experience, the app also includes sounds, animations, and interactive visual effects that are displayed after a word is completed. Choose capital, lower-case, or cursive letter display for a greater challenge. Montessori Words also features a movable alphabet that allows open-ended activities for young children learning their letters.
__
★Wired's GeekDad - "5 Favorite Apps for Elementary School iPads" - "An excellent tool for learning spelling and early literacy (...) It can build from simple to more complex words making it usable by students from prep through to grade 3 or 4"
★ commonsensemedia.org (rated 4) - “Montessori Crosswords is a great way for kids to develop literacy in an engaging way that feels like play."
★ crazymikesapps.com (rated 4.5)- "This iPhone kids app is one of my favorite reading/writing learning apps. The application is easy to use for both parents and kids and focuses on reading/writing skills in a fun way."
★ Teachers' Reviews:
-Sue on Iear.org - "I just have to say I love Montessori Crosswords both as a parent (to 2, 7, and 8 year olds) and K teacher. I like that the app is appropriate for the developmental levels of my students and all three of my kids"
-Jennifer (2nd Grade Teacher) - "this is a fantastic app (...) I can use it as is in the classroom tomorrow and benefit from it"
-Cindy - "This is one of my favorite educational apps. I highly recommend it for the children who are learning to read and spell. The kids also love the interactive artwork."
★ Users' Reviews
"Fantastic - best reading tool for my daughter yet!"
"I am a Speech-Language Pathologist and use this application as a reward for my patients."
__
Universal App - works on your iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad
__
Visit http://lescapadou.com for a video demo and tips on how to use the app as an educational tool.
__
Email questions or suggestions to support@lescapadou.com.
What's New in Version 3.6
Thanks for your great feedback that help us to make the app better and better - we are listening to our users to improve our products!
➜New dialog to prevent kids to use external links
➜Words reordered in "Focus on one sound" section
If you’ve got a moment, please rate the app - or re-rate this version - to tell people it's a great app and so we can keep free updates coming. We've included a shortcut ( "Feedback/Rate this App" button) inside the app to ease the process. Thanks!
History:
v3.5: New words, Phonics & Christmas word list
v3.0: Advanced Phonics Support thanks to the feedback of parents,SLPs and teachers. The app now supports 41 different phonics so that :
➜Kids can touch the white rectangles where they must place letters, and hear the phonics for the word. All phonics are supported: long and short vowels, consonants digraph like "th", and even silent letters.
➜Phonics played are chosen according to the words displayed so they are always correct.
➜You can choose to focus on a set of words that contains a specific phonic - e.g. short a, long a, sh sound, silent e,... There are 44 categories to choose from
➜For levels 2 and 3, you can also now play with single words.
➜Cursive letters have been added as an alternate choice.
v 2.5
➜Option to limit time play of Interactive Animation (available via the "Settings" app)
➜Option to hide solutions (available via the "Settings" app)
➜Louder word audio
➜Word is now pronounced when a word is completed. In addition, letter sounds are also pronounced in level 1 when a word is completed
➜Interactive animations are now supporting up to two touches at the same time for even more fun !
v2.0
➜ New words, audio and phonics
Customer Reviews
Brilliant
I recently enrolled my four year old daughter at a Montessori pre-primary school. I then bought this app which she tried and loved, as it allowed her to practice what she had started to learn at school. The app is also designed to be fun and rewarding for kids.
Within a week I received an email from the head mistress telling me that my daughter had started to read. A lot of that achievement can be credited to the help she got from practicing with this app.
I give this app a full five stars!
Great App
Montessori Crosswords is one of the best language learning apps we have found.
It is always highly recommended. My nephews love this app..
There is a lot more to this app than just the crosswords great detail has been spent perfecting every part of the game and making it both fun and educational.
The Best
I can't believe anyone would rate this less than five stars! It's brilliant and my kids love it!
- $2.99
- Category: Education
- Updated: Mar 15, 2012
- Version: 3.6
- Size: 16.0 MB
- Language: English
- Seller: pierre abel
- © L'Escapadou 2011
Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.Requires iOS 4.0 or later.
