Bottom Line: TeachMe: Third Grade, the final app in 24x7digital's TeachMe series, continues with the same format as TeachMe: Second Grade, broadening a bit into grade-appropriate skills. While it is still a consistently solid app with tons of content, I would have liked to see the presentation and functionality of it grow along with the user as much as the skills did.
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No ads, no in-app purchases, links to developer’s own ads behind parental locks.
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I recently reviewed 24x7digital's TeachMe: Second Grade and I was chomping at the bit to take on TeachMe: Third Grade. My son will be heading to the third grade next year, and y’all know I’ve been able to sneak learning apps in on him in the past under the disguise of playing on the iPad.
The setup of the TeachMe apps is becoming quite familiar to us at this point. Even though we thought the content might be a little advanced for him, we set up an account for my guy so that we could track his progress. As is the norm in the Teach me apps, you’re allowed multiple accounts, so it works well for families with more than one child or for classroom use.
After setting up an account, the first thing we saw was the progress page that lists all of the subjects available:
- Multiplication
- Division
- Fast Multiplication
- Fast Division
- Spelling
- Sight Words
Next we headed in to “Teach Town,” just as we did in earlier apps in this series. Teach Town is composed of a school and various stores. As your child learns in the school, he will earn coins that can be spent in any of the stores to buy various rewards. There is a neighborhood, a photo booth, a shape store, a fish store, and an art store.
At this point we entered right into the random testing of various subjects. My second grader was able to keep up quite well, as most of the things being presented are subjects they are beginning to touch on this late in his second grade year. At the early levels, the math subjects are presented in a lesson mode that helped him work his way through problems that might otherwise be a little out of his grasp. It wasn’t long before things progressed past his current comfort zone, but I can see that this could be a useful testing and review source for us next fall when we really are starting third grade.
I was curious, though, how an actual third grader would respond to the app. Every parent knows that there can be oceans of difference between kids from year to year. So I set out on a long, arduous search for an actual third grader to run through the treadmill. (OK, it wasn’t that long or arduous. I happened to be at a birthday party for one of my preschooler’s friends and I corralled an older sibling to give me a little help. Payment was given in the form of being allowed to play Minecraft on my iPad while the little kids played “baby games”.)
My new test subject was a nine-year-old boy who is coming up on the end of his third grade year. We set him up an account and began to poke around. The first thing he asked me to do was to change the input method from handwriting to keyboard input. Apparently the lined paper is “babyish." Then we went in and manually set the difficulty levels up to three (out of five), just so it wouldn’t be too boring for him. He seemed quite comfortable with all of the skills and progressed on up to the next levels. When we reached level five, he let me know that we were working on math skills that he had just recently learned. As far as the testing went, it seemed to be a good fit for him in reviewing the subjects he was covering in school.
Then I asked him to talk to me about how liked it. He told me that the math and spelling were “OK” but that the mouse was “babyish” and the rewards were “boring.” Third graders are really tough cookies.
TeachMe: Third Grade has many of the strengths of the earlier apps in the series:
- There is a terrific amount of content to keep the little user occupied and engaged.
- It has the smooth functionality of a very well built app.
- The ability to have multiple accounts and to be able to manually advance to new levels is a real plus.
But there are ways that it could be stronger:
- For purposes of review, there should be a way to choose a particular subject at any one time to concentrate on.
- At this grade level, the sight word level could really be replaced with something along the lines of reading comprehension or grammar. At this point kids need a little more challenge than just picking single words.
- While it might be difficult to figure out a way to make the actual testing “cooler,” third graders really do need a more sophisticated system of reward. Perhaps it would be possible to incorporate some fun (and more challenging) mini-games at this point, instead of the mini-band type reward that is currently offered.
Don’t get me wrong, I still feel like it is a solid app with a ton of content that makes it well worth the $1.99 price tag. I just want it to advance in maturity as well as content so that it can continue to be a great resource for testing and review throughout the year.
*****
Kelli is enjoying watching the Bradford pear trees burst into bloom. Kelli's sinuses are not as appreciative.24x7digital is an advertiser at SmartAppsForKids.com.
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