TFS – Canada’s International School, in partnership with Tapfun, today launched a school-created, French-language, cursive writing app for kids, available on iTunes.
 
The brainchild of TFS primary school teacher Céline Lebel, the app, Écrire en cursive, was developed to improve cursive writing skills using a fun, technology-based method. Classroom tested and approved, the app is geared to students from Senior Kindergarten through Grade 2.
 
The app utilizes visual modelling and provides instantaneous and positive feedback to the user. It tracks mastered letters and presents new ones in a structured sequence to continuously challenge students in a fun way.
 
“Through Ryerson's DMZ start-up incubator, we connected with Tapfun to develop this digital innovation for the classroom. We are extremely proud that this technology integration was inspired from Mme Lebel's expertise and experience teaching cursive writing to our Grade 1 students, where she saw how an iPad app could augment part of their learning experience at TFS. “ - Bob Tarle, Executive Director, Innovation and Technology, TFS - Canada's International School
 
Studies have shown that, unlike keyboarding, cursive writing stimulates the brain’s ability to retain information, while developing fine motor skills.
 
Écrire en cursive is a free iPad app, available on the iTunes App Store. For more information, please visit the Écrire en cursive product web site, which also includes a video demo and screenshots. 

Now available on the iPad, "Ten Frames Math" gives students a dynamic ten frame to explore while solving addition and subtraction up to 20. This app includes bonus vocabulary (over 100 objects) that are shown in the ten frames when pressed. This is ideal for Kindergarten - Second Grade. Several educators helped to shape the final design of this app.

School Edition iTunes link: itunes.apple.com/app/id1056859804

​As seen in the screenshots above (and videos below), the app is segmented into 3 levels: up to 5, up to 10 and up to 20. Further, you can select Addition, Subtraction or Addition and Subtraction.

We've lowered our prices on all of our apps and app bundles for 2 days only. This sale ends on Monday August 10th. Drop me a line and let me know where your kids are using our apps this summer holiday! jordy(at)tapfun.com

In the educational app space, you are always building with two users in mind: educators and students. Educators download your apps and students use them. Educators control the devices, students use them. So when all of your users are 5-8 year olds, and you know that getting reviews would be helpful, what do you do?

Here is what you don't do: 

1) You don't force your users to review your app. We never have and we never will.

2) You don't create fake reviews of your apps or pay third party services to do so. We never have and we never will.

3) You don't require parents to review your app to unlock content. We never have and we never will.

So we need your help, how should we incent educators to review our apps? What steps would you take if you were in our position?

Program Summary:

Phonics Fitness teaches children, 3 - 6 years old, alphabet letter recognition and sound association skills through a combination of animation, music, and exercise. 

Letter sound association which is critical to success in reading and writing is taught in association with a key word. 

The program takes only three minutes daily and is designed to be used as an active learning break for the whole class or at home.

There are 33 days of programming and a new letter is introduced daily along with continual repetition so that students will master letter recognition, sound association and learn to blend some 3-letter words. 

The flexibility of the program allows lessons to be repeated to accommodate the learning needs of all children. 

Phonics Fitness provides the structure to strengthen your existing literacy program and the active format makes learning fun, enhancing memory and learning.

Carol McCabe has developed the concept for Phonics Fitness over several years of successfully teaching children to read. She has been in the education field for 40 years, has her Masters of Education (Special Education) and is a trained and experienced Reading Recovery Teacher Leader.


Frequently Asked Questions:

Why teach phonics?

Developing strong literacy skills is critical to a child’s success in school and beyond.  Current research shows that alphabet knowledge in Kindergarten is the key skill which predicts future success in reading and writing. Mastering effective letter sound association ensures students will become better readers. 

I already teach Phonics why do I need Phonics Fitness?

Most Kindergarten and Grade One classrooms today promote a balanced literacy approach which incorporates some phonics instruction but the phonics instruction is not generally presented in a structured sequence. 

The National Reading Panel says:  “systematic and explicit phonics instruction significantly improves kindergarten and first grade children’s word recognition and spelling”  

Phonics Fitness provides that explicit programming and structure in a format that provides an active learning break and takes only 3 minutes daily

Do I have to change my existing literacy and phonics program?

No, Phonics Fitness is designed to strengthen and reinforce the programming you already do. It provides another learning opportunity in an engaging format that promotes memory and learning. 

I notice there are only 33 days of programming. What do I do after the 33 days?

Phonics Fitness is designed to be flexible. The whole program can be repeated once it’s been covered or you can go back and review just individual vowel sections.  Once you’ve established a daily active learning break you’ll want to continue it and students will continue to learn and benefit from it. 

I notice you only use lower case letters. I want my students to also recognize upper case.

Phonics Fitness is designed to teach students to master the letter sound connection to improve their reading skills. Most text is lowercase and students need to know it well to read. Through your regular classroom programming you can continue to teach the students upper case letters. 

Phonics Fitness introduces letters in a different order than I do. How did you come up with the order?

I have successfully taught children to learn to read for many years and determined the order based on that experience introducing most common letters first and making sure not to have visually confusing letters b/d presented too close together. 

I think introducing one letter a day is too fast for my students. Can I change it?

Phonics Fitness is designed around daily lessons of 3 minutes each in which a new letter is introduced but there is constant repetition of previous letters. At any time you can review a lesson or a week of lessons to meet the individual learning needs of your students.

My students know the consonants but have more trouble with the short vowel sounds. How will this program help them?

Students typically have more trouble remembering the short vowel sounds. The lessons are structured in units based on the 5 short vowels sounds and the vowels sounds are repeated much more than the consonant sounds to promote mastery of them. 

I want my students to also learn long vowel sounds why don’t you include them?

The short vowel sounds and consonants are the key to getting starting in reading and writing. You can teach long vowel sounds as part of your regular programming. Part 2 of Phonics Fitness will teach blends, digraphs and long vowel sounds.

I want to use Phonics Fitness but I don’t have a smartboard?

It can also be displayed on a tablet or on a computer screen. In fact if the students are close enough you can hold a smartphone up and play it as long as they can hear and see the letters and words.

 I don’t think my students are ready to recognize the words displayed. Is this program too advanced for them?

The students can learn the alphabet and letter sound association without learning to recognize the key words. The program is designed for differentiated instruction so that those students who are ready will learn to recognize the words as well.

Most of my Kindergarten students are ELL. Is this program too advanced for them?

No, the program will in fact help to accelerate their learning of the letter sound connection and letter recognition skills. The actions and key words will also build some core vocabulary for them.

How is Phonics Fitness different from Jolly Phonics?

Phonics Fitness and Jolly Phonics both recognize the importance of teaching phonics 
systematically to young children. 

In Phonics Fitness,  music, actions and the repetition of letter sound associations to a 
key word teach the phonics skills in a format that’s fun and easy to use in 3 minutes a day. 

In Jolly Phonics the teachers reads a poem that has actions and words that have the 
same letter sound association. 

How does Phonics Fitness connect to a handwriting program?

There are four main components to learning about letters. Phonics Fitness focuses 
and teaches to mastery the three main components of letter recognition, letter naming 
and letter sound association. Once these are known a child can more easily focus on 
the fourth letter formation. If you have an existing handwriting program you like you can continue to use it while using Phonics Fitness even though the letters are presented in a different order. In the future Phonics Fitness will have worksheets provided which will include letter formation for those teachers who want to have a written component follow the active learning session.

I'm pleased to announce that Antoine Boivin-Filion is joining Tapfun as a Technical Advisor. I've known Antoine for over ten years and always appreciated his insights on building digital products and managing technical teams. Antoine has successfully rolled out a number of large and complex projects - he has most recently served as the Director of Digital Experiences at the Yellow Pages Group.

Antoine's background and experiences are helping us build our engineering organization and plan for more complex product lines across mobile and online channels. In the future, educational software will require a highly sophisticated technical architecture and Antoine has the right knowledge to help us plan for that reality.

A few highlights from Antoine's career in technology include the following:

• Launched several mobile products that have been featured and selected as editor’s choice by Apple and Android app stores (including most of the Canadian Yellow Pages applications)
  

• Managed some of Canada's most visited websites
  
• Recruited, hired and managed large technical teams spanning the front-end and the back-end

Antoine holds a bachelor of computer sciences from Université de Sherbrooke and an MBA from McGill University.

Welcome Antoine!

Now available on iOS, "Making Words Kindergarten" gives students 50 lessons to build spelling skills and develop phonemic awareness. The format and word sequencing were developed by Patricia Cunningham and have been recognized for their ability to motivate students in a fun and engaging way. Several expert educators helped to shape the final design of this app.

School Edition iTunes link: itunes.apple.com/app/id938939281

As seen in the screenshots above (and videos below), the app is segmented into 50 lessons which are organized by word family. A star tracking system shows student progress on the home screen. Students can go to any level and repeat any level as many times as they would like to develop their skills.

Today we tested an upcoming app with a class of Grade 1 students. Pictured above is the calm before 17 kids get a hold of a new learning activity. As always it was great to get feedback from teachers and students. A few takeaways from the session follow:

1) When testing, clear direction is essential

In our session, the teacher introduced the new application and explained why the learning activity was important for the students. By first setting the context of the app, the students understood the goals of the testing session and what they would be working on. After explaining the goals of the session she demonstrated on a big screen how the app worked and what the students were to do. This got all of the students on the same page and focused them on the work ahead.

2) Students must get feedback within the app

When designing apps, building in appropriate feedback can be overlooked and under-appreciated. But as I saw again today, kids absolutely need to get feedback and want to see their progress. One of the benefits of software is that we can build in feedback for students - and we must do so with care ensuring they understand how they are doing and what progress they are making. 

3) Kids are willing to try something new but it has to engage them

Kids are more than willing to try something new, but it must engage them to hold their interest. To engage kids, it can be easy to default to distracting gimmicks but what I experienced today showed that kids will engage with learning activities that challenge them, give them feedback and show their progress.

These are a few of the takeaways for me from today's session. I'd love to hear your thoughts on testing in the classroom. How do you run your testing sessions? As an educator, how would you test a new application in your classroom?

I’m pleased to announce that Carol McCabe is joining Tapfun as an Early Literacy Advisor. I met Carol while she was working at Bloorview School Authority in Toronto as Coordinator of Programs. She has helped me better understand how students with special needs use iPads in their classrooms and has offered some good direction for Tapfun.

Carol’s background and knowledge has helped us think about how we can best impact early learning. Carol firmly believes that learning to read well in the early grades is critical to a child’s success in school and life. We’re working together on an early literacy project that builds off of Carol’s vast experience.

A few highlights from Carol’s career in education include the following:

• Certified Reading Recovery Teacher Leader
• Special Education Consultant/Coordinator with the Toronto District School Board and Bloorview School Authority for 19 years
• Master of Education (Special Education at OISE)
• Kindergarten, Primary Grades, Reading Clinic and Resource Room Teacher
  
• Co-founder of the Bookshare Program
  

We are very excited to have Carol on board and look forward to her input on how Tapfun can impact early learning.

Welcome Carol!

Sue Holt recently took some photos of her Kindergarten students using one of our apps (Math Word Problems for Kindergarten and First Grade). Sue is a very experienced educator who runs the blog "A Digital Kindergarten." (adigitalkindergarten.com)  Sue writes about integrating technology in the classroom and on her experience in a 1:1 Kindergarten classroom with iPads.

One interesting thing you will see in these images is how one student is using the iPad and one student is using a whiteboard. Using such approaches educators like Sue are able to cover a range of learning objectives in the classroom.

Thank you Sue for sharing these images!