In this second of two posts, the mum of a five-year-old boy who was implanted this year, shares details of their favourite apps for language development. Part One of this post, went live last week.
Second Favourite App:
I broke this group into my son’s three favourites! I am a huge believer in reading stories to children to grow their imagination, increase their language development and self confidence and ability to interact with both children and adults.
The Apple store is full of different stories for children.
G’night Safari is a wonderful interactive story about animals going to bed. Your child can interact with the animals in the story and help put them to bed. It is a wonderful colourful app that’s great for language development and listening skills. My son likes to say good night to the animals and it is a good way of teaching different names of animals to children.
Teddy’s Night is a story about a teddy bear and the things it gets up to at bedtime. There are light switches for the child to turn off and on, the voice reading the story is easy to understand and hear and it is a lovely way to interact and read a story to your child.
PopOut Santa My son’s favourite story of the night before Christmas. Your young child interacts with the story and can turn the pages, even sending Santa up the chimney! This story for young children leads to discussions about Santa, snow, the weather at Christmas, food – the list is endless. It is all about language development and time talking with young children.
Third Favourite:
Telling Time has different clock faces to teach the time to young children. The full version teaches the time, the hour hand and the minute hand. The child earns stars to exchange for fish for a virtual aquarium when their answers are right. There are also puzzles, quizzes and interactive games.
My son is at the age where he asks what time we are going out, or what time daddy is coming home? This app introduces him to the clock, to move the hands around, to see the screen change from light to dark as he moves the hands. This is not something you could teach with a real clock.
Deaf children quickly learn the visual difference in night and day, what time we eat breakfast, what time is lunch? We use this app as a visual reinforcer, like we will be going to the doctor at 10 o’clock, show me 10 o’clock? My son loves getting fish for his aquarium, so wants the right answers!
Fourth Favourite:
Seasons teaches children about the world we live in (pictorial form) the weather, seasons, clothes, months and days of the week. The children develop listening and comprehension skills with a caregiver, while using critical thinking skills to observe and match images, such as the kite with the windy weather. This great science tool can start discussions about the environment and onto recycling, space, stars, planets……
Fifth Favourite:
Injini Lite Child Development Game covers speech and language, numbers, tracing, colours, matching, puzzles, fine motor skills. This app was devised by parents, early educators, and occupational, speech, and cognitive experts. My son finds this app fun, colourful and easy to use for listening and early writing skills but a child must also use auditory and processing skills to get the answers right. Children also develop their fine motor skills, sharing and turn taking skills, letters and shape names.
Worth a Mention:
Popout – The Tales of Benjamin Bunny: another great story for young children, very interactive and well illustrated.
See. Touch. Learn Great to replace the old flash cards, easy to set up with a library of pictures such as animals, the weather, vehicles.
Mini Adventure: Let’s learn the Alpabet teaches young children in a very visual way by linking to YouTube videos to show the ‘real item’. So, A is for Airplane – you click on the picture which brings you to YouTube, and a real film of a plane landing!
Toca Hair Salon: Another great app that’s in a hair salon. It is great for childrens’ language development, action words, cutting, washing, drying, following directions and for listening skills. Two children playing together can take turns to discuss colour, length, long, short, hot, cold, wet, dry etc.
(contributed by Julie Anne Cunneen)
