Sight Words Hangman
Spooky but clever twist on a classic for fun sight-words practice
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Sight Words Hangman
Pros: More than 300 sight words presented in a fun, recognizable game.
Cons: It would be nice if the app offered an alternative to the eerie hangman figure.
Bottom Line: Good spelling practice for kids who like guessing games.
The app would be a fun treat after a successful day in the classroom, or a way to warm up kids for a more serious lesson.
Sight Words Hangman is an app allowing emerging readers to practice sight words in a familiar guessing-game format. In the game, a word is spoken from one of 45 lists of 10 sight words, and four choices appear. Kids choose the word they think is correct from those choices (which typically vary quite a bit from one another; no attempts are made here to "trick" kids into choosing the wrong word). A score is kept in the upper right-hand corner so kids can track it. If they choose incorrectly, a part of the hangman appears on the gallows. Each list gets progressively more complex than the last; five of the lists are based on holiday words. A flashcard mode with a quiz option is also available on Sight Words Hangman for kids who need extra practice before playing the game.
Kids who have played hangman before will catch on to this app, although the paper version of the hanging man is far less spooky than this one. Kids who are bothered by mildly scary images may not like this hangman –- at all. Other than that, with no social network gaming capabilities, ads, or external links, Sight Words Hangman is a safe, contained way for young kids, or for students for whom English is a second language, to practice sight words in the classroom without much oversight. Unfortunately, multiple kids' results can't be tracked on the same device's app, and results are not displayed beyond the last game played.
Learning Rating
Fast-moving drill & practice for common English words
Drill and practice as part of a hangman game brings back memories from my elementary school days when we did this activity on the blackboard. As an iPad app it becomes a motivational tool to help 1st and 2nd grade students master the 300 most commonly used English Words and boost their basic reading skills. I prefer the flashcard mode over the the hangman mode but students seem to prefer the hangman mode. It contains 40 word lists of 10 words each - with some repetition, of course. There is great flexibility for choosing which list to begin with and whether the preference is for the Easy level or Hard level. This iPad app can always be used in the class as part of drill and practice, for homework as reinforcement, or as a quick review prior to an assessment. Students can hear the word, spell the word, and upon hearing the word - choose it from a list of 4 works. It's a pretty good English Language Arts tool, but will eventually be unnecessary for students who have mastered the 300 sight words. ELL students can control their practice time and hear the correct pronounciation repeated times at their leisure.Competition to get the correct answer prior to being hanged is motivational. It would be a better tool if teachers could add their own word lists.