Excited to use it
I’m excited to see how this works. But it won’t let me add more then one student.
Great for young readers
I’m an elementary teacher and mom. My first grade daughter is currently using this app and she likes it. She is working on reading and this app has been helpful. I think this app is fantastic! I’m hoping there can be a few updates but overall I am satisfied.
*********I would recommend this to other parents.**********
Pros: This is great for early learners or struggling readers. It guides the students and interacts with them so if an adult is not around they can still learn a lot. It is in a fun, game format so it’s not boring to learn it. The child will say the words/sounds and write the words/sounds. This is great for the child to learn overall. Children can learn their letters, sounds, and words while saying the words correctly and writing the words. Children do earn coins/points for getting things correctly so they can change their icon or theme song.
Cons: 1) My daughter will say some of the sounds or words and it won’t accept her response. She doesn’t have an accent and she’s saying the words correctly but it’s saying it’s wrong. I think she’s saying a word half a second too long so it’s counting it wrong. She will be right by me and the word is correct but it won’t count it correctly. She gets very frustrated by this so I will say it for her after a few attempts when she says it correctly but it doesn’t register as correct. ***This is my biggest concern because it’s very frustrating for her and I don’t want her to give up. I know there will be younger children who won’t speak as clear as her so I feel like this is a big issue. *** I am thinking about getting this for 1 or 2 of my very low students that are severely behind their peers but I’m concerned if they don’t speak clear enough they would get too frustrated. If this improves I would like to purchase it for them and even let my principal know about this for our school.
2) This is a small con for me but I can see it being more of an issue for my daughter. My daughter didn’t like the speaker to be a boy on half of the lessons. She liked when the girl was the speaker. I was surprised because that has never been an issue before on things we have done. Maybe because some lessons are the girl and some are the boy so she knows there’s a girl option. She has skipped all of the boy lessons and doesn’t want to do them. I don’t want her to skip any lessons. I will make sure that she does those lessons but it will be more of a hassle because it doesn’t seem fun if I’m making her do it. ***I think an update so the child can choose if they want a girl or a boy to guide the lesson would be great!
3) This isn’t a concern but a suggestion. For the coins/points it would be great to have options for the children to choose different items for the speaker/child doing the lesson. So if the girl or boy is doing the lesson children can buy accessories or clothes to update the avatar. I like that the coins earned has to be a lot to purchase something. It could be the same way for additional items for the avatar.
4) This isn’t a concern but a suggestion. When I logged into the report as the parent it didn’t seem as if much information was given about what she has worked on. It says in progress or done for her lessons. She has done one test and it said how much was correct on it but how would I as a parent help my child with that report? I can figure it out by sitting with her and listening to see what she gets wrong plus I teach so I would know where to start. If I wasn’t a teacher or if I wasn’t able to sit by her and see what she’s missing I wouldn’t know what to work on. It would be nice to be able to download a report or if a report could be emailed each month giving more information on what needs to be worked on. As a teacher when we have programs for students I will get a monthly email on where my students are at and what they need to work on. I think if a parent knows what their child needs help with would be very useful.
*********I would recommend this to other parents.**********
Pros: This is great for early learners or struggling readers. It guides the students and interacts with them so if an adult is not around they can still learn a lot. It is in a fun, game format so it’s not boring to learn it. The child will say the words/sounds and write the words/sounds. This is great for the child to learn overall. Children can learn their letters, sounds, and words while saying the words correctly and writing the words. Children do earn coins/points for getting things correctly so they can change their icon or theme song.
Cons: 1) My daughter will say some of the sounds or words and it won’t accept her response. She doesn’t have an accent and she’s saying the words correctly but it’s saying it’s wrong. I think she’s saying a word half a second too long so it’s counting it wrong. She will be right by me and the word is correct but it won’t count it correctly. She gets very frustrated by this so I will say it for her after a few attempts when she says it correctly but it doesn’t register as correct. ***This is my biggest concern because it’s very frustrating for her and I don’t want her to give up. I know there will be younger children who won’t speak as clear as her so I feel like this is a big issue. *** I am thinking about getting this for 1 or 2 of my very low students that are severely behind their peers but I’m concerned if they don’t speak clear enough they would get too frustrated. If this improves I would like to purchase it for them and even let my principal know about this for our school.
2) This is a small con for me but I can see it being more of an issue for my daughter. My daughter didn’t like the speaker to be a boy on half of the lessons. She liked when the girl was the speaker. I was surprised because that has never been an issue before on things we have done. Maybe because some lessons are the girl and some are the boy so she knows there’s a girl option. She has skipped all of the boy lessons and doesn’t want to do them. I don’t want her to skip any lessons. I will make sure that she does those lessons but it will be more of a hassle because it doesn’t seem fun if I’m making her do it. ***I think an update so the child can choose if they want a girl or a boy to guide the lesson would be great!
3) This isn’t a concern but a suggestion. For the coins/points it would be great to have options for the children to choose different items for the speaker/child doing the lesson. So if the girl or boy is doing the lesson children can buy accessories or clothes to update the avatar. I like that the coins earned has to be a lot to purchase something. It could be the same way for additional items for the avatar.
4) This isn’t a concern but a suggestion. When I logged into the report as the parent it didn’t seem as if much information was given about what she has worked on. It says in progress or done for her lessons. She has done one test and it said how much was correct on it but how would I as a parent help my child with that report? I can figure it out by sitting with her and listening to see what she gets wrong plus I teach so I would know where to start. If I wasn’t a teacher or if I wasn’t able to sit by her and see what she’s missing I wouldn’t know what to work on. It would be nice to be able to download a report or if a report could be emailed each month giving more information on what needs to be worked on. As a teacher when we have programs for students I will get a monthly email on where my students are at and what they need to work on. I think if a parent knows what their child needs help with would be very useful.
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Response from developer
Hi and thank you for your wonderful and thoughtful review! We are so happy to hear that your daughter is benefitting from OgStar! For speech recognition activities, please make sure that she holds the button until the ears pop up and then counts to 3 after saying the word before releasing the button. As for picking your avatar or being able to change the clothes, those are both great ideas and I hope to have an update like that in the near future! On the teacher portal, if you go to the Lesson Progress tab, you will see all of the lessons listed and how much has been done. If you then tap on the specific lesson numbers to the left, you will see a detailed chart of how the student fared with each specific skill. This information can inform subsequent teaching. Please reach out through our ogstarreading.com website if you'd like to discuss a school pilot! Best regards!
Amazing!
Sooo happy to have found this app. We’ve been using for only one week so far but it’s working wonders with my 1st grader. I love what she’s learning and she’s really enjoying the “game” aspect of it. Worth every penny. Thank you OgStar!