Listening Power K-3 {App Review}

I am always so excited when Hamaguchi Apps contacts me about a new app to review!  Their newest app is Listening Power for grades K-3.  I'm still using the Preschool version that I reviewed in June, and loving it.  I was so excited to check this out and share it with you!

I love that all of the Hamaguchi Apps follow the same format for adding users and adjusting settings. This makes it so easy for me to figure out a new app.  First, you add your students.  You can add each student individually, and then organize students into groups.  Once you add your student or group, you hit "play."

Next, you will look at the settings.  You can adjust the activities, answer choices, levels, reward game, and whether or not you want to track data.

Now you are ready to play!  Here are the different activities available within this app:

Listening for Descriptions:
In this activity, students are presented with an auditory description without any pictures paired with it.  After the description is read, the pictures appear.  Students must listen to the description and then recall the description to make a selection.  There are three levels for this (easy, intermediate, and advanced) with 50 descriptions in each level.  I love that you can also choose how many choices the students will have (2, 3, or 4).

Listening for Meaning:
This activity is similar to Listening to Description, however students are listening for a specific word in the sentence.  Students must listen to an auditorally presented sentence, and then answer a question to associate the word and its meaning.  Again, there are three levels with 50 vocabulary words each.

Listening for Grammar:
In this activity, students must listen to sentences and select the one that "doesn't sound right."  Grammar areas included are: plurals, verb tenses, pronouns, preposition concepts, and negation.  Students select the one that is not correct, and then are able to hear how the sentence should sound.  Again, there are three levels with 50 grammar questions each.

Listening for Word Memory:
Students listen to a series of 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 words.  Nine pictures are then shown, and students are asked to remember and touch the words in the correct order.  Because of the variety of word choices, the three different levels of difficulty, there are endless combinations available in this activity.  This means no item memorization in this activity!

Listening for Stories:
There are three levels for this activity.  In the easy presentation, a story is read with accompanying pictures and sound effects, followed by questions about the story such as who, what, and where questions.  The intermediate presentation is a bit more difficult with pictures only at the beginning and the end of the story, and more difficult question types.  The advanced level did not have pictures in the stories that were presented to me, however the app developers do state that pictures are available on non-fiction and science type stories in this level.

When your students are finished with activities, they can earn a quick game.  There are two to choose from, and you are able to determine how many activities your student needs to complete to earn either of the games.

Door Game

Shoot the Basket

At any point during these activities, you can click "end session."  This will stop the activities, and allow you to look at data that was collected (if you chose to do so).  When you are ending your session, do not click the home button- you will lose any data that was collected.  In examining your data, you are able to view your session results, email them, print them, save as a pdf, or delete them.  One great feature here that I don't usually see in apps is the ability to play the missed items again.  What a great feature!

This data is so comprehensive.  I love that the data sheets tell you which items the student got correct, and which items the student missed.  This will definitely give me great information about what I should be targeting with different activities.

Well, all I have to say is that Hamaguchi Apps has done it again!  Another great app to help supplement my work with students!  This will be wonderful for working on listening for grammar, vocabulary, descriptions, and story comprehension.  With the data collection done for me, it will be a breeze to progress monitor some of these areas!  Thanks Hamaguchi Apps for another great opportunity and great app!