Nicole’s Pick: Sight Words Gr.1 & 2

This app is designed to support sight word recognition.  There are 5 different games:

Word Tour- words are identified and then spelt out by the computer

Find n Shoot- words are on clouds and the user has to click on the word said by the computer

Unscramble- the user is told a word and has to unscramble the letters to form that word

Memory Game- pairs of sight words are hidden under 12 clouds

BinGo- the user is prompted to click on the word said by the computer

When the user downloads this app, he/she gets both Grade 1 and Grade 2 sight words.  Another nice feature is the ability to choose two different levels-easy and hard- for each game.  As well, there is a Red Word list, where the user can add words that are more challenging for them for extra practice.

This is a great app for students to use on their own, small group, or even whole group to practice sight word recognition.  There are a great variety of games so the user can try out different games each time to practice this word identification.  The visuals are great, though the voice is somewhat irritating at times as it is very computer generated.  I did notice that one word was not said correctly by the computer - instead of using the long ‘a’ sound in the word ‘table’, it said the soft ‘a’ sound  for the word.  This only occurred once in two weeks of playing this game in my classroom, so it is not something that happens often at all.

The app can be downloaded for free, or the user can purchase the app for $1.99.  The only difference that I could find in the two versions is that in the free versions, there are advertisements at the bottom of each screen, where in the $1.99 version, there aren’t any ads.  In my opinion, I would not spend the $1.99- the ads do not draw your attention away from the games at all.

Overall, a very good app; it wasn’t one of my favorites, but it is a great app for sight word recognition, it has a good variety of games, and students do certainly enjoy playing the games.