Handy School Tools Parents Will Love
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Handy School Tools Parents Will Love
Back-to-school shopping can be simultaneously exhilarating, sticker shock-producing, and full of hopeful possibilities for a new beginning. We know that getting organized, dusting off that IEP from the pile you have avoided since June, and preparing to meet your child’s teacher top your to-do lists.
We at BridgingApps find that making lists, using visual cues, and taking notes can help us feel prepared and empowered to tackle back-to-school madness, but we must acknowledge that we and our children- approach the art of preparedness differently. Vive la difference! Taking into account individual preferences, learning styles, and a variety of strategies that help us all cope, we have pulled together some practical tools for learning that appeal to many styles and won’t break the bank.
CanPlan
By University of Victoria
This app allows parents, therapists, and teachers to easily and visually break down and schedule tasks to promote independence for most age and grade levels. Virtually any activity can be broken into a sequence of easy-to-follow steps, illustrated by photos and reinforced with optional text and audio. Scheduling and reminder features ensure each task gets done on time and helps provide structure for those who benefit from visual cues.
Price: FREE
Todo Number Matrix: Brain teasers, logic puzzles, and mathematical reasoning for kids
By Enuma, Inc.
The app includes games using matrices for practicing these skills. The matrices also provide practice of visual perceptual skills such as visual discrimination and spatial skills. These visual perceptual skills are important for reading and other academic skills, as well as math.
Enuma prides itself in creating apps with features that make their games playable for students with working memory or visual processing issues, language delays or have under-developed fine motor skills. We appreciate Enuma’s commitment to creating high quality accessible learning tools!
Price: $3.99
Tinycards – Flashcards
By Duolingo
A modern twist on traditional flashcards, Tinycards is specifically designed to help kids focus, stay on task and help with processing written information.
Great for typically developing students and those diagnosed with learning disabilities, using Tinycards app makes learning new concepts fun. The app uses spaced repetition and other smart learning techniques to help users remember new material. Pick from thousands of educational topics or create your own.
Price: FREE
Bitsboard – Education, Games, and Flashcards for Learning Reading, Spelling, and more
By Innovative Investments Limited
The app allows a parent, educator or therapist to design boards that can be made into a variety of activities including flash cards, photo touch, word reading, matching words to pictures, true or false, multiple choice quiz, and a spelling bee. This app can be used for vocabulary development, second language learning, reading practice, spelling practice, a simple communication board and receptive language skills. The activities/boards can be customized to goals and/or themes easily for individualized education.
Price: FREE
Common Core Standards
By MasteryConnect
Parents can access this summarized information that can help demystify how an IEP is written with state standards in mind and better advocate for their child’s learning. Quickly find standards by subject, grade, and subject category (domain/cluster). This app currently includes Math standards K-12 and Language Arts standards K-12. If your state has not adopted Common core, click here to find standards for your state.
Price: FREE
If you are interested in searching for more apps, creating your own list of apps and sharing them, please go to BridgingApps.org. BridgingApps, a program of Easter Seals Greater Houston, is a community of parents, therapists, doctors and teachers who share information about using mobile devices with people who have special needs.
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This post originally appeared on our September/October 2016 Magazine
