Bottom Line: If
you are looking for an all-in-one syntax app, this is a nice one to use for
practice. It is great for both younger and older children, can be
individualized for each student, and set up for groups or an individual.
However, the price may be out of reach for many families.
If you’d like to download Syntax City (iPad only, $14.99),
please use this handy link and show Smart Apps For Kids some love:
Smarty Ears has created a nice all-in-one syntax language
application for kids ages four and up.
Designed by speech language pathologist
Barbara Fernandes, this app is useful for therapists and teachers as well as
parents, and can be used with individual kids or with groups. It targets eight
different grammatical areas, including
do/does, was/were, he/she, and regular/irregular plurals. It is set up
to resemble a city, including a bakery, gym, beach, farm, etc. In each area,
the student is asked to fill in the blank with the correct missing word (for
example, “They was/had/were decorating the cake.”). After a number of
sentences, the student is rewarded with a “treasure” that relates to the area
they are in. Some, but not all, areas have more than one level to increase
difficulty for students.
Are you working with a group of kids? No problem! Not only
can you set this app up for group or individual therapy, but you can also set
it up for multiple goals during the same session. This is extremely easy to do,
and can even be done while the kiddos wait. There's also a way for the therapist or parent to take photos of the kiddos to include in their profiles — something my students loved.
The student’s individual progress is monitored with each
correct or incorrect answer. You can check daily progress once your session is
complete by pressing the “done” button. You can also check progress by choosing
the “report” button on the home screen. There is also a bar graph to show an
overall level of functioning in each area. If the child correctly answers the
question, he is prompted to record the sentence. This is done in order to help
the child learn to listen to the correct word usage in each sentence. The
teacher/therapist/parent has the option to choose in the settings what happens
if the user chooses the incorrect answer. The incorrect answer will either disappear or the
user will hear a buzzing noise.
Parents, has your child’s therapist asked you to work on his
grammar skills at home? If so, this is a good app to use for concept practice.
However, this app tends to resemble worksheets or flash cards typically used in
therapy, rather than a game that the student would be more likely to be willing
to play at home.
Things I wish were
different: As previously mentioned,
this app more closely resembles a worksheet
or flashcards (a picture is shown
with a fill-in-the-blank sentence), than a game. While it is motivating due to
the fact that it is on an iPad, students will become disinterested in it after
a short time. I also wish there was some teaching or re-teaching of the concepts.
Instead the app goes right into practicing the concepts, so the child cannot
use it independently until he has a good grasp of each grammatical concept.
Overall, Syntax City provides a nice place to continue working
on grammar/syntax skills, just because it contains so many different goal
areas. And under the support tab, it does include a link to watch the instructional video and request support from the company if needed. But since the questions are all fill-in-the-blank, your kiddos may lose
interest and want to move on to another activity quickly.
***
Jenni has spent the
last two months of her life talking to her new baby. She may need to use Syntax
City to help her before she goes back to work as a school based Speech/Language
Pathologist later this fall.
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