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Teacher Review for Words to Learn By

Very rote, and definitely not for 2nd and 3rd grade

Marcello S.
 Classroom teacher
Rocketship Mateo Sheedy Elementary School
San Jose, United States
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My Subjects English Language Arts
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My Rating
Learning Scores
Engagement
Pedagogy
Support
My Students Liked It No
My Students Learned No
I Would Recommend It No
Setup Time Less than 5 minutes
Great for Further application
Individual
Practice
Great with Advanced learners
How I Use It
I tried to use it with 3rd graders, as it says grades 2-10, but the app is definitely not for 2-3 grade. The "games" are your basic fill in the blank worksheet set up, choose the synonym, and match the definition. Basically multiple choice questions. All the games also have no scaffolding and don't work to build student knowledge, it's more based on rote memorization and drill and kill. This type of app was not engaging at all for 3rd graders and the vocab was a bit high. I tried it in a small group and as independent work, didn't work out for either.
My Take
This has some cool features, and if I was a high school student studying for the SAT's or didn't care about engagement, it would be a good app. I do like the "index" feature where you can categorize words and focus on words you want to focus on. Also the "games" do work as a drill and kill tool, if that is what you are looking for. I think a driven high school student who is just there to build vocab, is self driven, and doesn't care about much else, could find this app very helpful. To make it better the activities need to be a lot more engaging and build vocab through using the words in context (the only game that does that is fill in the blank, but that isn't a very genuine way to build schema) and also through visuals. They could also add in some flair and animations to motivate students more. This is basically 21st century flash cards and vocab building worksheets, which for what it is, is fine.