The Fantastic Four team chose four educational apps that would be useful in classrooms: Charades, ASL Coach, Vocabulary Spelling City, and Autism iHelp. Each app was summarized, including its purpose, reviews, classroom uses, and relevant learning standards. Charades helps students practice communication skills, ASL Coach teaches American Sign Language, Vocabulary Spelling City provides spelling and vocabulary games, and Autism iHelp focuses on who, what, when questions to aid vocabulary for students with autism.

1. Created by: The Fantastic Four
Victoria Stanishia, Briana Tharas, Courtney Mills and Katrina Martinez

2. Fantastic Four Top 4 Apps
- Team Fantastic Four worked together to choose
one app each that will be useful and
developmentally appropriate in our future
classrooms. The top 4 apps that we chose were
Charades, the ASL Coach, Vocabulary Spelling
City, and Autism iHelp. We all agreed that the
apps that we chose were apps that we would love
to use in our future classrooms. We chose apps
that we knew would benefit our students in the
classroom.

3. Charades
• Synopsis
- One app that our group discovered is called
“Charades!” With this app, students choose a kid-
friendly category, place the iPad on their forehead, and
the other students try to communicate what the specific
word is without saying it directly. Then, then the other
student guesses correctly, the team gets a point.
• Review
- One user on iTunes gave this app five stars out of five,
and mentioned, “This game is so amazing me and my
friends love playing his when we are at school maybe
you could have animals as a quick play version but
everything else is amazing.” This app is a great way to
bond and communicate with people of all ages in unique
ways. Another user on November 9, 2014 stated, “Really
teaches my son how to be more descriptive & he’s
learning more idioms!” This app is great.

4. Charades
• Classroom use and Resources
- This app if multifaceted, and can serve as a tool for a
wide variety of educational topics. For example, this app
can help students with the use of adjectives. The more
practice they have with describing given topics, the more
fluent they will be in vocabulary and the English
language. This app also gives students practice
communicating with their peers, improving their verbal,
and nonverbal skills. This app has the ability to enhance
students language fluency—enriching their writing and
communication skills.

5. Charades
• Learning Standards
- CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.3.4
Report on a topic or text, tell a story, or recount an experience
with appropriate facts and relevant, descriptive details, speaking
clearly at an understandable pace.
• This standard would be met because students will need to
report on topics in order to solve the words. Students will need to
speak clearly, and be descriptive.
•
• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.2.1
Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English
grammar and usage when writing or speaking.
• This standard would be exemplified because students will be
gaining practice with speaking properly, and therefore, writing
properly.
• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.3.1.i
Produce simple, compound, and complex sentences.
• This app will give student practice with formulating a wide
range of different sentences. This will improve their sentence
composing skills.

6. References:
FatChicken Studios. (2013). Charades! Free. App Review iTunes.
Retrieved November 14, 2014, from https://
itunes.apple.com/gb/app/charades!-free/id653967729?
mt=8

7. The ASL Coach
• Synopsis
-The application I chose is ASL Coach- ‘American
Sign Language’. This application is free and helps
promote literacy using sign language. This
application is useful for students of any and all
ages. There is a virtual coach to assist with
practicing and users can control the pace of
instruction. This application is extremely useful in
classrooms. In my own classroom I would like for
my students to use this application. On coach
mode, my students can type in words and chose
the speed in which the word is shown. Students
can then share with the class a word they learned.

8. The ASL Coach
• Review
- “The app performs extremely well; the interface is
bright, friendly, and easy to use. Anyone looking to
learn American Sign Language will definitely benefit
from ASL Coach.”
- Quote found on appPicker.com owned by Dutz
Technologies LLC based in San Francisco, California.
• Classroom use and Resources
- This application is versatile in any classroom. Students
can use an iPad to access the application and type in
words. Students can then practice signing those words.
This application is crucial to literacy.
- Students can also master signing words and then teach
their peers the words that they learned.

9. The ASL Coach
• Standards
- English Language Arts- Standard 4: Students will
read, write, listen, and speak for social interaction.
Students will use oral and written language for
effective social communication with a wide variety
of people. As readers and listeners, they will use
the social communications of others to enrich their
understanding of people and their views.

10. References:
Software, D. (2014, October 12). ITunes Preview. Retrieved
November 13, 2014, from
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/asl-coach-american-
sign-language/id385799946?mt=8

11. Vocabulary Spelling City
• Synopsis
- Spelling City is a free app that can be used by students of
all ages. In this app the students can play a variety of games
provided to practice and learn their vocabulary words.
Teachers and parents can go online to
vocabularyspellingcity.com and create their own spelling lists
including all vocabulary words they want the students to
learn. The students would then login and gain access to those
lists. Some activities that are available include, but are not
limited to unscrambling words, alphabetizing the words,
matching, fill in the missing letter, and practice spelling tests.

12. Vocabulary Spelling City
• Review
- Teachers have reported that this app is very helpful for
struggling readers to practice and review vocabulary and
spelling. They mention that it is a great way for students to
have fun while learning and can be used at school or at
home.
- Our group has reviewed this app and agree with what the
reviews say. Vocabulary Spelling City is very accessible and
has a variety of fun games and activities that are beneficial to
all students.
• Classroom Resources
- I would use this app to have my students practice their
spelling words. There are a variety of different activities so I
could have the students choose a different one each night to
help them practice their vocabulary for homework.

13. Vocabulary Spelling City
• Learning Standards
Conventions of Standard English:
- CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.4.6
Acquire and use accurately grade-appropriate general
academic and domain-specific words and phrases,
including those that signal precise actions, emotions, or
states of being (e.g., quizzed, whined, stammered) and that
are basic to a particular topic (e.g.,wildlife,
conservation, and endangered when discussing animal
preservation).

14. References:
"SpellingCity." SpellingCity. SpellingCity, n.d. Web. 16 Nov. 2014.
<https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/spellingcity/
id538407602?mt=8>.

15. Autism iHelp
• Synopsis
- Autism iHelp is a free app that is for any age level. It is a
vocabulary teaching aide that focuses on the questions of who,
what and when. Autism iHelp is mainly directed towards the
English Language Arts content area. It was developed by the
parents of a child with Autism and also a speech-language
pathologist. This app features who, what and where questions
with photos because children with Autism Spectrum Disorder
are visual learners. This app provides photos because the
children are more likely to grasp the concepts. There is also an
option to have audio selected, you have two voice options- male
or female. You have the option of turning the audio on if you
would like the child to have the question and answer read
aloud or have the child read the question and answer by
himself.

16. Autism iHelp
• Review
- This app was released in September of 2012 and was recently updated in August of
2014. As I reviewed the customer comments who have purchased this app many say
that this is a wonderful app for kids with Autism. One customer in November of 2012
stated, “I’ve tried other wh- question apps for autistic kids, but this has so far been
the simplest yet the most efficient app.”
- When I recently showed this app to my group members they said this was a
wonderful app that could be used in the classroom. They themselves said that they
would use this in their classroom. As a group, we agreed that this app is
developmentally appropriate for any age level and has real world questions and
pictures that is very useful for every child.
• Classroom Use and Resources
- In order to use this app in the classroom, the teacher must make sure that this app
is related to the lesson. For example: if your lesson plan has to do with professionals
your student with autism can visually see the who questions and understand that
who has to do with people. A few of the questions in this app say: 1. Who goes into
outer space? 2. Who takes care of sick people? 2. Who teaches children at school? As
well, if you want to teach your students about what questions they have questions
about animals. Your lesson plan revolve around animals in different areas and learn
about the sounds and where they are from. For example some what questions are: 1.
What animal neighs? 2. What animal swims? 3. What animal flies? 4. What animal
has a long neck?
- What is great about Autism iHelp is that this app can be used to integrate into any
lesson plan whether it involves English Language Arts, Mathematics, Emotions and
Transportation. There is always an Autism iHelp app that can be directly related to
your lesson plan.

17. Autism iHelp
• Learning Standards
- Conventions of Standard English:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.K.1
Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English
grammar and usage when writing or speaking.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.K.1.D
Understand and use question words (interrogatives) (e.g., who,
what, where, when, why, how).
- Although this app is for any grade level I would start using this
app for Kindergartners. I would do this because if you integrate
Autism iHelp early while also teaching them the question words of
who, what and where the students will be able to have a better
understanding. The students would have a visual of who, what
and where questions. This app can be integrated into any lesson
plan because there is Autism iHelp- wh questions, Autism iHelp-
language concepts, Autism iHelp- comprehension and many more.
I would create a lesson plan around Autism iHelp to make sure
that the students will be able to comprehend and understand the
concepts I am teaching.

18. References:
Talavera, John. "Autism IHelp – WH Questions." Autism IHelp –
WH Questions. Apple Inc, n.d. Web. 16 Nov. 2014.
<https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/autism-ihelp-wh-
questions/id557548372?mt=8>.

19. All of these images that were used in the Fantastic Four Top
Apps PowerPoint are credited by Google Images