Review by Amanda Bindel, Common Sense Education | Updated July 2013
Get it now
  • Download from App Store

Kid in Story Book Maker

Get it now
  • Download from App Store

Easy-to-make personalized stories can help boost social skills

Subjects & skills
Subjects
  • English Language Arts
Skills
  • Communication & Collaboration
  • Creativity
Grades This grade range is a recommendation by Common Sense Education and not the developer/publisher.
Pre-K–1
Great for:
Common Sense says (See details)
Teachers say (2 Reviews)
Price:  $6.99
Platforms:  iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch

Take a look inside

5 images
A tutorial shows clearly how to create books. Older kids or teachers will easily understand the process.
Create books on any topic, with any photos and text.
Easy-to-use photo editing software in-app makes it super easy to take just the kids' image from a picture to use in the book.
Templates are available and easy to customize with kid's image and name.
Library of all titles created or customized is available in the app.

Pros: Impressive green-screen technology extracts kid's image from the background.

Cons: Only a few templates currently available, but developer promises more.

Bottom Line: A must-have story creation tool for teachers in special-needs settings.

How Can I Teach with This Tool?

Occupational therapists, speech therapists, and teachers can create social stories for kids featuring kids they are working with, to help kids prepare for new situations or adapt to a routine. Kids can easily create their own stories, too, using pictures of themselves. The templates currently on the app include: Faces iMake, Let's Get a Haircut, What Will I See in San Francisco?, Are Monsters Hiding in My Room?, On the Playground, When Is It Time to Wash My Hands?, and A Day at the Movies. The developer promises more templates to come.

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Put this tool into practice:
Standards:

Kid in Story Book Maker is a storytelling app for iOS that includes several template stories where teachers, therapists, parents, or older kids can add their image right into the story. With the impressive green-screen technology, it's easy to extract a person's image from a photo and eliminate the background, so just the picture of a person can be dropped into the scenes in the book. Teachers or therapists can create custom books from scratch using their own images and words, or they can add a kid's image into existing social story templates. Add your own text and record your voice, as well. The developers also have a free reader app available, so you can share the books with others for at-home reading too.

Though many storybook creation apps exist, Kid in Story Book Maker is unique. Even with a relatively hefty price tag, its social story focus makes it a valuable asset for kids, especially those with special needs who require extra help with social or communication skills. A video tutorial shows exactly how to use the tool, which is so easy to manipulate that kids will quickly be able to create their own stories and insert themselves or their friends into them. The green-screen technology that finds the person within the picture and extracts him or her is pretty impressive. Even if it's wrong at first, it's easy to change the parameters to extract only the person's image from the background. Kids can easily share their storybooks, too, even with friends and family who do not buy the app, since there is a free reader available for download. Ways to use Kid in Story Book Maker are limitless -- from creating stories to prepare kids for new situations, to describing emotions using text and images (or spoken word) in therapeutic settings, to creating stories on any topic in any class.

Overall Rating
Engagement Is the product stimulating, entertaining, and engrossing? Will kids want to return?

What's more exciting to kids than reading stories or publishing their own? Starring in those stories!

Pedagogy Is learning content seamlessly baked-in, and do kids build conceptual understanding? Is the product adaptable and empowering? Will skills transfer?

Creating social stories allows kids to see themselves in different situations before they encounter them, which may ease anxiety. This approach can be very successful with kids on the autism spectrum.

Support Does the product take into account learners of varying abilities, skill levels, and learning styles? Does it address both struggling and advanced students?

Easy-to-follow tutorial video shows kids, parents, and teachers how to create or alter stories.

Common Sense Reviewer
Amanda Bindel Classroom teacher
About our ratings and privacy evaluation.

Key Standards Supported

Reading Literature

  • RL.K.9

    With prompting and support, compare and contrast the adventures and experiences of characters in familiar stories.

  • RL.1.7

    Use illustrations and details in a story to describe its characters, setting, or events.

Speaking & Listening

  • SL.K.1

    Participate in collaborative conversations with diverse partners about kindergarten topics and texts with peers and adults in small and larger groups.

  • SL.1.1

    Participate in collaborative conversations with diverse partners about grade 1 topics and texts with peers and adults in small and larger groups.

Writing

  • W.K.1

    Use a combination of drawing, dictating, and writing to compose opinion pieces in which they tell a reader the topic or the name of the book they are writing about and state an opinion or preference about the topic or book (e.g., My favorite book is...).

  • W.1.1

    Write opinion pieces in which they introduce the topic or name the book they are writing about, state an opinion, supply a reason for the opinion, and provide some sense of closure.

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