Language Adventures, now updated with additional content targeting categories, inferences, and wh-questions, is a new spin on your old speech and language game boards! Language Adventures is a first-of-its-kind app that allows you to engage students in a contextual language intervention experience on your iPad! Through an exciting interface and bright, colorful graphics, students will develop language skills in areas for success in school.
All the basics of game play- player selection, dice rolling, and token moving- have been transformed for the iPad platform. Additionally, the app allows you to select from three levels of difficulty appropriate for elementary through high school-aged students, with accompanying school-based themes and vocabulary contexts, and save your students’ targets and progress over repeated plays. Question targets are related to the topics of each leveled game board (playground, cafeteria, and classroom), so that they are grounded in a stronger context to enhance students’ comprehension, semantic connections and use of more complex vocabulary. Language Adventures is based on research regarding language development and use of context clues to increase overall language skills, reading comprehension, and academic success. Research has indicated that targeting vocabulary facilitates reading comprehension and oral language skills (Dole, Sloan, and Trathen, 1995). The questions within Language Adventures are presented within real-world themes providing context clues to assist in learning vocabulary. By providing context-based questions and a thematic approach, Language Adventures assists children in strengthening word connections and developing meaningful concepts (Hickman, et al. 2004). Within the content of Language Adventures, the child is provided with meaningful learning activities related to their own experiences and encouraged to use student-friendly definitions of words within the app, which enhance language comprehension and production (Beck, et al., 2002).
Authors: Language Adventures was authored by Nichole Hanneken Ontis, M.S., CCC-SLP and Danielle Sears, M.S., CCC-SLP. App Designers: Sean J. Sweeney & Barbara Fernandes.
Language Adventures is based on research regarding vocabulary development and use of context clues to increase overall language skills, reading comprehension, and academic success. Research has indicated that targeting vocabulary facilitates reading comprehension and oral language skills (Dole, Sloan, and Trathen, 1995). The questions within Language Adventures are presented within real-world themes providing multiple context clues to assist in learning vocabulary. Studies have shown that when provided with specific types of linguistic information such as examples or restatements, students are able to unlock meanings of unfamiliar words within text (Baumann, Edwards, et al., 2003). By providing context-based questions and a thematic approach, Language Adventures assists children in strengthening word connections and developing meaningful concepts (Hickman, et al. 2004). Within the content of Language Adventures, the child is provided with meaningful learning activities related to their own experiences and encouraged to use student-friendly definitions, which are proven to enhance language comprehension and production (Beck, et al., 2002).
Language Adventures can be used to:
-Work in an adult-student pair or group of students on flexible word use, targeting synonyms, antonyms and multiple meanings.
-Develop vocabulary, naming, and description in the context of real-world settings.
Authors: Language Adventures was authored by Nichole Hanneken Ontis, M.S., CCC-SLP and Danielle Sears, M.S., CCC-SLP.
App Designers: Sean J. Sweeney & Barbara Fernandes.