Splingo’s Language Universe, by The Speech And Language Store, is a fun alien hosted app that helps develop student’s listening and language skills. The students love interacting with all the silly images and hilarious animations. Splingo, the alien, speaks and the children must follow the spoken instructions. As a built-in reward, kids get to help Splingo build a spaceship and help him on his way home. Of course, they need to complete their tasks first.
This is a fairly intuitive app,with a Quick Start for those who have been using the app and a customizable option for those who are either new to the app or need to work on certain word types. The app includes 4 word types: Nouns, Verbs, Prepositions and Adjectives. If you choose customize, you can add more. In addition, when you customize, you choose the number of main words you want the child to work on. You can also have a sentence displayed to help students who benefit from reading visual directions. Students can read from one to four directions.
If you’re working with Developmentally Disabled students, this is a great app to help students learn to listen to more than one direction. Many of my students have this as a goal on their IEP (Individualized Education Plan). Students need to follow directions and differentiate between important concepts like : big, small, next to, and. under etc. I like the fact that students can hear the directions as well as read the directions, giving them an opportunity to experience both, simultaneously.
I would like to see the app track data so teachers can record where students’ strengths are. The app allows five student, multiplayer use, to see who can get the highest score. This helps students work on sharing and to experience what it feels like to win and lose. As the Common Core Standards are integrated into school curriculum, this app would be a part of Speaking and Listening. Speak in complete sentences when appropriate to task and situation, in order to provide requested detail or clarification. Splingo’s instructions range from a very early level of language development: e.g. single word recognition, to much more complex, e.g. instructions combining several aspects of language at once.
A guide to the levels:
•Level 1 -contains instructions of 1 main word and is suitable for children at a developmental level of about 18 months upwards, e.g. “find the apple”
•Level 2 – contains instructions of 2 main words and is suitable for children at a developmental level of about 2-3 years, e.g. “find the red apple”
•Level 3 – contains instructions of 3 main words and is suitable for children at a developmental level of about 3- 4 years and upwards, e.g. “find the big red apple”
•Level 4 – contains instructions of 4 main words and is suitable for children at a developmental level of about 4 years and upwards, e.g. “give the big red apple to the boy”