First Sight Words Professional

The company advertises that their apps have French versions but this one doesn’t serm to have it. Really disappointing! Had I known, I would’ve purchased a different version!

The main problem with this application is that it basically uses the same format and engine of the other Learning Touch FirstWords apps. While this may work for words like "dog", "cat", and "car". It's not so effective on Dolch words like "will", "of", and "has". I'm not sure what designates this app as being a "pro" version other than different words and a higher price. If you aren't familiar with the FirstWords app format, you essentially get an object on the lower left hand corner of the screen representing the word to be spelled. There are a series of silhouetted boxes at the top of the screen showing the letters spelling out the word. There are tiles below that and the child drags the tile to the appropriate corresponding box to spell the word. The letter is spoken as selected and dragged to the box and the final word is said once the spelling is completed. The object representing the word then spins to the middle of the screen with a corresponding sound effect. Examples: "will" a picture of a guy I am assuming to be William Shakespeare (my 4 year old doesn't know Will Shakespeare) "of" a glass of orange liquid (I still can't figure what that means…) "like" a guy smiling beside the sun (ok. I guess he likes the sun or the sun likes him) "has" a guy with his arms open surrounded by dollar bills with a "+s" appended to the image "did" is a picture of a hand finger painting with a "+d" append to the image. While I understand the fundamental purpose of this app is probably to get kids to memorize the words, there is such a lost opportunity here. For example for the word "grow" instead of having a static picture of an Apple tree with a bunch of different sized apples on it, it would have been so much better to have an animation of an apple actually growing larger on the tree after the word is spelled. That way the child actually understands what grow means. Instead the apple tree just spins to the middle of the screen with a sound effect. Also, instead of just a generic sound effect at the completion of the a spelling, it would be so much better to actually have an example of the word in a sentence. Having the app say "we can see the apple grow on the apple tree" would not only be more representative of the meaning of the word grow, but it also reinforces a bunch of other Dolch words at the same time.

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All words Pre primer Primer Grade 1 Grade 2 Grade 3 Nouns

This is an extremely basic program and could have been designed better to promote spelling. Students are presented with correctly spelled word at the top of the page and scrambled letter tiles which they drag and drop onto the word. So it’s better for letter recognition than a child learning how to sound out syllables and improve their spelling. Also, the illustrations are extremely plain and oftentimes confusing. For example, the word WERE is illustrated by a watch, a plus symbol, the letter “S”, and an arrow. We had no idea what this meant. There were quite a few images that were very awkward and caused my students to get hung up on the indecipherable art or the strangeness of the art, like a soldier removing a giant snail from a cookie jar for the word TAKE. This would be fine as a free app to use once or twice with a pre-schooler interested in playing with letters, but we didn’t find it worth the $10 price at all, and regret the purchase.

This app is not worth the $9.99 that it cost. Beware!

I'm using this app for a student using a Pixon board. It is so wonderful to have an app that coordinates with the student's AAC system. Very effective - maximizing his language and literacy development.

Still needs some extra features, but its a great way to learn the icons and sequences! Also i like that you can choose grade level. It would be helpful for kids with more motor involvement if they didn't have to drag the letters to spell, maybe just tap them in order.

My son has autism and really likes First Words Deluxe from which he's learnt a lot of spelling. I just purchased this App for him to learn the spelling of more abstract words. I am baffled by the pictures used for some words because my son will take that word to mean the picture portrayed. For example, "a" shows a cone, the words 'is" , "am" and "be" all show a picture of someone holding a skull (???), the word "and" shows a picture of interlocking tubes on the underside of a train (??), the word "so" has a picture of someone straightening his tie, the word "as" shows a scale etc. Granted it's difficult to represent these words in pictures & I don't have suggestions for what visuals to use but surely the developers could do their homework and come up with better options or use no pictures rather than confuse kids. My son hasn't seen this App yet & I probably will delete it rather than confuse him since he takes things very literally. There really should have been a free Lite version. Definitely NOT worth the 10 bucks. Another annoying thing both on this app & the Deluxe one: To go back or forward, you have to touch the home button or forward arrow 1x then the icon moves to the middle of the page and you have to press it AGAIN to go where you want. Redundant.