How Can Teachers Use It?
Teachers could use a flashcard comic to start class with a vocabulary warm-up. Students with 1-to-1 devices could work through the quizzes at their own pace until all words are mastered and then move on to a more robust word list. Since there are no teacher reports, students will need to track their own quiz scores if teachers want to see that information.
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What's It Like?
Grade 7 Vocab Audio and Pics is one in a series of vocabulary-building apps from Lafazi, Inc., that make learning words fun. Quirky cartoons depict each word, and brief-but-detailed audio recordings present "short stories" or usage examples. Through study, flashcard, and multiple-choice quiz modes, students can learn 226 middle school-level words such as vicious, legitimate, and harmonious.
In study mode, kids search or scroll for particular words, read the part of speech and definition, enjoy a cartoon, flip the page for usage text, or press the cryptic audio button at the bottom (the triangle) to hear the definition and usage. Flashcard mode shows only the word and part of speech, but kids can tap to see the cartoon as a hint or flip for the definition. Twenty-word quizzes give five definition choices. Correct answers are highlighted in green with a check mark, with incorrect answers in red with an X. Words get separated by student or by quiz results into “mastered” and "don't know" lists.
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Is It Good For Learning?
Grade 7 Vocab Audio and Pics engages students with fun comics, which means new vocab words will be grafted onto their brains. The graphics are crisp, navigation is intuitive, and the audio feature is nice for struggling readers and ELLs. Entries also feature spot-on definitions and parts of speech, which are sometimes left out of competing products.
Even with all these great features, there's some room for improvement. Cartoons are sometimes a bit off: For example, the word resume shows a team of baseball players standing on a field holding umbrellas during an electrical storm (!), presumably before play resumed (in the future). The usage "short story" explains how this picture relates to the word, but the image doesn't stand alone.
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Main menu showing three modes and feedback button.
Study page for rite (n) including cartoon, definition, and audio button at bottom (triangle).
Usage "short story" on flip side of study page for radiant.
Quiz page for gratitude (n) from the "don’t know" list; correct answer in green text with green check mark; orange light-bulb icon is for cartoon hint.
Study page for resume (verb) showing ballplayers before resuming play.
