Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Recommended Resources Computer/iPhone Games for Language Arts?

Are there any advanced reading/spelling/comprehension games that might be a good fit for a seven-year old boy? He's mastered BigBrainz on the math side, is getting into Zoombini's Logical Journey, etc. Looking for something similar that is more focused on the "reading" side of things.

Brain pop and brain pop jr have apps for the iPad and iPhone with one free movie per week. We have those and brain pop es (Spanish) and just access the free movies (not paying for a subscription). Each movie had the words under it...if he reads well you can turn the sound off and just read it.

There is an Opposites app that gets pretty advanced on vocabulary for iPad.

Also Raz-Kids from AtoZLearning.com offers a huge collection of leveled readers (Aa-Z) that can be read or listened to and has comprehension questions at the end. You can also record yourself reading and play it back. You earn stars for all of these activities and can design and build a cool rocket. If you buy the subscription ($99 annual), you can download the Ipad app for free.

Happily, not to be snarky, but we really, really dislike Raz Kids. The readers are just not good quality texts-- they are stylistically appalling and not very interesting. The questions they ask about the text are based on rote memorization of what's in the text, only infrequently genuine comprehension, and never *interesting.*

Raz is required by our school, but it is a struggle to get my child to do them... and I don't feel guilty about skipping that particular piece of homework.

Do you happen to know the name of this app, or who makes it? I did a search and over 100 "opposite" apps showed up. A lot of them look like they're more for preschool-aged kids, but I would love to find one that caters to elementary (or even older.)

It's from Mindshapes. I did a search for "mindshapes opposites" and it was the only one that came up in the app store on my iPad. The vocabulary on this one is aimed at an older elementary at the higher levels. Here is a link to info about it:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/the-opposites/id480194638?mt=8

DeeDee-- Not snarky. My son did not like Raz at the (too low) level he was given at his school but he did have fun reading the level "Z" books like Robinson Caruso and enjoyed the audio option to listen to the book or record himself reading. He basically got in and figured out how to choose his own levels and that's what made it a good resource for us.

Thanks HM! Looks like it's worth downloading, I think both DS and DD might enjoy it.

I just recently signed up for a subscription to spellingcity.com. One of my DS6.5's teachers sent home the list of 300+ sight words that they are supposed to master in first grade, stating that since he already knew them, we should start working on spelling at home.

I didn't know where to start, since he is very good at spelling and knows most of the words, so I am having him use spellingcity.com to learn/practice/ test lists of sight words available through the website. My other son (also 6.5) is also using it, and has commented that he likes the games.

Thanks for all the suggestions!