Literacy Apps in the Classroom

Do you have technology in your classroom?  Are you looking for some apps to use with your kindergarten kiddos?  I am here to tell you about some of the apps my students use and love.

I posted about how I letting my kinder babies use iPads during one of our literacy centers.  You can read about that {here}.  Needless to say, its a big hit.  I love it because I can easily differentiate the activity.  At this moment in time, I am choosing the app the students use during literacy center time.  (On Fridays at the end of the day we do "free choice centers".  One of those is the iPads and they are able to choose which apps/games they can play then.)

All the apps I am showing you today are FREE!  Some have option to buy the full version, but for now I am just using the free versions.

Here is a great app for letter identification:

Photo Touch ABC

Students will see an image like this:

Then they are asked to touch a particular letter.  If they touch the incorrect letter it makes a little sound.  If they touch the correct sound, it tells them something positive like "You're great!"  I used this app for my students who were still struggling with letter identification after the rest of the class had mastered that skill.

Here is a great app for letter/word/shape writing:

Little Writer

This is what students see.  They make the whale eat the fish in order to make the letter v.

What I love about this is that it takes each letter one step at a time.  Therefore, the students are not overwhelmed.

You can also use this to write numbers, words, and to draw shapes.  I use the shape writing during math center time.

Here is what the students see when they are drawing a shape:

This time the crab is eating pineapples. :)

Great apps for word building:

All the Spelling Magic Apps.  I have Spelling Magic 1, 2, 3, and 4.  I choose which app my students use.

My students who are just beginning to do CVC words use Spelling Magic 1.  This is what they see:

It is a picture of a map, the letters with boxes, and the iPad will say the word.  As the students move the letter to the box, it will make that letter sound.  They are not able to put the letter in the box unless it is correct.  If they try, it will move the letter back to its original position.

Spelling Magic 2 has consonant blends.  Here are the categories to choose from:

Spelling Magic 3 has multiple syllable words.  There are also categories for the students to choose from.  Spelling Magic 4 has silent e words.

Apps for sight words:

I have two sight words apps on my iPad.  My favorite is called Endless Reader.

The students choose a word.

Put the letters back into the word.  As they move the letters, they make their sound.

Then the students put the words in the sentence.

The app will then read the sentence to the student with a little animation of the sentence.

The other app we have is called Sight Words Grade 1 & 2.

This app has many different games to choose from.  I use this one with my students who need a little challenge. :)

These are just a few of my favorite literacy apps I use in my classroom.  There is also another one that we have on our school's classroom set of iPads, but I can no longer find it in the app store.  It is a phonemic awareness game and I love it!  If you have recommendations of apps we should try, please comment below.  We are always looking for new ones!

I will be posting this week about the math apps we use during math center time.  :)