Introducing, Describe with Art! ((App Review))

Virtual Speech Center has done it again!  They created a brand new app perfect for all of those working on describing and building understanding and using of vocabulary!  They were generous to contact me and provide me with a  copy to try out and share with all of you!

This app follows the similar layout as their other apps, you can edit the settings in the main page and you can enter in student names and great individualized lessons. As  you can see, you can use this app with multiple students at a time! 

Here you can see the two types of activities to select from (describing and follow directions.

The app uses an adorable "art class" theme and introduces the app to students with this cute cartoon:

Describing:  This requires students to use their expressive vocabulary to describe pictures presented.  They can record and play back their responses.  As you can see along the bottom, there are 5 paint cans.  You can use these cans to prompt students with what to say.  Since you rate whether your students are correct or not you can individualize this activity even further:

• Can students describe independently?
• Can they say all 5 prompts?
• Can they eventually fade out the prompts and include all 5 descriptions on their own?!
• Can even use EET strategies to describe the pictures!

For example, within the "people" categories, the prompts are as follows:

• Who is it?  How old this person?
• Describe his/her height and weight.
• Describe his/her hair color, style, and length.
• Describe his/her face, skin, eyes, and nose.
• Describe his/her clothes.

Follow Directions:  This requires students to listen to complex and multiple descriptions in order to receptively select the image being described.  I recommend using this activity first to help illustrate thorough descriptions!  Can your students repeat them back?  Can they express how they determined their answers?!  The app allows you to select when you move onto the next page so you can wait and elicit conversations/questions on each page.

You can select after how many "trials" would you like to grant your students a reward.  I selected "5" since I did not plan on doing all tasks in the activity.  The reward, students can paint!  How fun?!  Extra bonus, you can have students make pictures to have each other describe!  Extra practice!

Whenever you are ready, or if you finish all the tasks in the activity, you can get data reports.  You can also access these reports from the main page!

Learn more about this $9.99 app by visiting Virtual Speech Center's website or iTunes!