# The Surprise (Pro) — user reviews > 44 indexed App Store user reviews of The Surprise (Pro) by Hamaguchi Learning & Development, LLC, rated 4.47/5 from 15 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/the-surprise-pro/id527236318/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/the-surprise-pro/id527236318.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 11 · 4★ 2 · 3★ 1 · 2★ 0 · 1★ 1 ## Newest reviews (13 of 44) ### 5/5 — Storytelling at its finest! *2012-09-14* Hamaguchi, you never disappoint me. This app allows children to be creative, use their imagination and express themselves. this is a challenge for many of the special needs I come in contact with. Seeing the picture and thus creating the story gives them ways to come out of their shell so to speak. love that you can record and/or write your story. way to go! ### 5/5 — Awesome!! *2012-09-11* Already tried the home version and loved it! This version has all the same awesome features and more! I love how the pro version allows for 30 users, which makes it possible for using with groups of students. The information page includes information about ideas for interventions you can use with this app, which is a valuable resource for educators and therapists. I also like how you can email the story, voice recordings, or both. Being able to print out their story is also a great feature! ### 5/5 — WOW *2012-09-10, version 1.0* I have the home version and love it. I know my teachers at my school would love this app. It does exactly what it says and the pro version gives you up to 30 different users.! Great stuff! @jedipadmaster ### 5/5 — Imagination, voice re-play and more! *2012-09-10* The idea behind this app is fantastic. Great way for your child to learn literacy and have fun learning. You can write, record your story and come up with different ideas for what is happening in the story. The app can help along if can't think of anything, but let your imagination run wild! What child doesn't have a great imagination? You can save your story and have different users if you want. A+ ### 5/5 — Excellent! *2012-09-10, version 1.0* This app is great to help motivate and inspire kids that have difficulty with writing narrative discourse. It is a great way to build confidence while having a great time. ### 5/5 — You're the Storyteller: the Surprise Pro Hd *2012-09-09* By: Papadiz I have the lite version of this app, too. The Pro version would be great for use with multiple children. The advice and suggestions for instructors are very helpful. This would be good for parents who might not have the technical training a teacher or a therapist would have. I'd suggest the pro version for home schoolers, too. I look forward to seeing expansion packs! ### 5/5 — Excellent concept *2012-09-08, version 1.0* I love this app. The visual storytelling is an awesome tool to help students create a "unique" guided story. Word prompts and questioning help guide the student and keep the story on target. Will definitely use this in the classroom. ### 5/5 — make your own story *2012-09-08, version 1.0* this is just a great way to let your imaginition grow the story can be made up the way the child see it and they can type it or record their own voice great pictures to ### 5/5 — A great app for creativity! *2012-09-08, version 1.0* Your child can watch beautiful animations with this app and then record their own storyline... AND type it in! This is a great way to encourage creative writing. I found this a valuable tool to add to my homeschooling apps. ### 5/5 — Very cool! *2012-09-08, version 1.0* I've never seen an app like this! This is a great app to practice sequencing, telling a story using simple or complex sentences, depending on a student's ability. I like the topics they use as they are familiar to most kids. Highly recommended! ### 5/5 — Amazing App *2012-09-07, version 1.0* I fell in love with this app. The graphics are superb. Kids can watch each video and write the story that goes with it. Students can either narrate the story using the microphone or type the story. I'm sure I'll use his app a lots nd will tell everyone about it. ### 5/5 — Simply Amazing!!!!! *2012-09-07* This is so much better than I expected. I loved it and I am an adult. All the kids loved it as well. You can not help but smile all the way through it. With each "chapter" you record you own versioin of the story. It is a wonder prelude to writing. Your children practice narrating which comes before writing. There are words that you can try to incorporate into the story if you want to challenge your child or student. There are optional questions about each scene, which is also optional. You can listen after each chapter or listen to the whole story after you record yourself. A great way to learn while having a whole lot of fun! An amazing app. Thank you for creating this! ### 5/5 — Fantastic!!!! *2012-09-07* My kids love this app!!!! Watch the story then choose if you want to record your own story words to go along with the scenes. Listen to your voice telling the story. You also have the option to write your own story and it provides a list of suggested words to include in your story telling dialogue. The creativity and imagination that is coming from my child due to this app is absolutely priceless. ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 1/5 — Great app- needs updating *2017-10-03* I love this app. Went to download it again and cannot. The developer needs to up date it. **Developer response:** Hi Pattibslp. No worries! We updated it to work with IOS 11 shortly after your review. Can you check and make sure it is working ok now? If so, we hope you will update your rating and review. Anytime you have any issues with our apps, please contact us at info@hamaguchiapps so we can communicate directly with you and help answer your questions. Justin @ Hamaguchi Apps. ### 3/5 — Slp *2013-01-01* I think the app is a great way to improve creativity, syntax and reading among many other areas of speech and language development. The only complaint I have is that there is only one story. There should be more than one story. My kids have mastered this story, answered all the questions, and used all the challenge words. They are bored with it now, and they really want a new story. Are there other stories available? I have the pro version so that I can have multiple users, but I think there should be multiple stories as well. ### 4/5 — Great tool for slps *2014-08-20, version 1.2* This is a great story to work on narrative skills. I only wish there was a way to make it go slower because my speech and language impaired students cannot keep up. ### 4/5 — Author approved App! *2013-01-14, version 1.0* As the author of two books, I LOVE this app. Not only can children speak the story and record it in their own words, but they can type it in too! My only wish is that it had a few more stories in it. This app is priced well and can give children hours of thought provoking fun! It is great for use with children who have trouble writing stories too! ### 4/5 — Super *2012-09-14, version 1.0* Great app for encouraging the creative process, and work on speech at the same time ### 4/5 — Great!!! *2012-09-13, version 1.0* Another wonderful app from Hamaguchi! My daughter had previous experience with an earlier version of this app. She could hardly wait to play and tell the story again! She was so excited about the story that she wanted her grandparents to hear it. She giggled so much with the cute puppy and boy. ### 4/5 — So useful. *2012-09-10, version 1.0* This app allows the child to watch a clip, and play it back with the microphone on, so that the child can re-tell the story. They can then play the recording. So useful for self correction and learning. I like it! ### 5/5 — More, more please! *2015-10-22* How great is this app! While it is only one story the versatility and the perfect design of this app makes it an exceptional tool for language impaired kids. It has been particularly helpful for some of my autistic students. What I've found is that repeated viewing of individual segments or reviewing the entire story over many sessions is very helpful. The ability to pause the story and look at the facial expressions within the context of a story is wonderful. Hope there will be more stories to come! ### 5/5 — Wonderful App with Many Educational Applications! *2015-09-23* My intermediate elementary school students love this app. It is perfect for small groups and can address expressive and receptive language, oral and written narrative skills, perspective taking and inferencing. Please make some more stories! ### 5/5 — Awesome *2013-05-01* I love this app. It's really thought out and there is so much to this app. You get to work on creating your own story based on what you see and think is happening. You get three questions per chapter, but I sometimes will ask my own questions. There is a great info page with tips and suggestions for using the app. Also, with the Pro version you can let your kid listen to other kids stories so they can hear how others interpreted the story. Great job Hamaguchi! ## Most praised reviews (7 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — Love this app! *2012-10-28, version 1.0* This app allows your child to view a video and write their own story. I love hearing what their little imaginations come up with! They love to hear their own voice recording and the illustrations are great!! Highly recommend! ### 5/5 — Awesome!! *2012-09-29, version 1.0* Another great app by Hamaguchi Apps!! This is a great app even of your child is non verbal as you can record your own voice telling the story. nothing motivates a child more than hearing their parent's voice!!! ### 5/5 — Good app *2012-09-28, version 1.0* This is a great way to give kids a creative way to finish a story a chance to use their imaginations and have fun while doing it too. ### 5/5 — Love this app! *2012-09-27, version 1.0* This app is fantastic for young children as well as the special education kids. It allows them to watch a video and then asks them to write the story. They can record their story and listen to it! It is FANTASTIC! The kid will love this and I can't wait to use it with my kindergarten kids : ) ### 5/5 — Great great and great! *2012-09-24, version 1.0* Both of my kids have and are enjoying creating their own storytelling (with lots of giggles)! Using the questions helped with my SN son who has a hard time engaging in conversation when being asked questions (unless something he enjoys) - this made it fun for him so he was engaged and learning! Highly recommend :-) The pro version has allowed me to save both of my kids along with some of their friends. My son asked to use during his SLP group and his therapist recorded the group to try it out before purchasing. What a hit! This is a must have for groups or those with more than one child. @CharlyJames2 ### 5/5 — Love this app! *2012-09-19, version 1.0* This app is a wonderful tool for encouraging story line development and overall reading comprehension. I love the ability to have multiple user profiles, which this Pro version allows. I would highly recommend this app to teachers, therapists and parents of multiple children. Nicely done Hamaguchi! ### 5/5 — WOW! Great App! *2012-09-14* This is an awesome app! It is so versatile! You can use it to work on writing skills, verbal skills, social skills, nonverbal skills, even basic skills like colors, naming objects, etc. The animations are colorful, lively and fun. I love the challenge words and the Question phrases to help initiate thoughts or conversation. You can vary your story so it is a little different. And what fun to be able to print it off or email it to friends or family. What a great app! --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-06-10.*