Cambugs 3 vs Shape Coding

Cambugs 3: First Words teaches children the first words they will need to become successful readers! This is the final step on their journey to become fluent, confident readers — following our previous apps, Cambugs: Letter Sounds and Cambugs 2: Phonics. Cambugs 3: First Words introduces 25 new bugs, and a more exciting bug collection on iPad. Cambugs has been developed by educational psychologists and parents. We know the importance of parents taking an active role in their children’s learning, so we developed an apps where parents/teachers and children work together. Cambugs 3: First Words is targeted at pre-readers, as well as struggling older readers. It uses evidence-based techniques that research has shown helps children develop their reading skills. You will notice in this app that children engage in lots of repetition — this is because this is a very effective strategy for ensuring that children remember and retain the words that they learn. There is also a test for ensuring that your child is able to remember their words quickly and fluently — this is because fluency is a key skill needed for becoming a confident reader. ◆ Developed by educational psychologists using teaching techniques that we know work. ◆ Teaches your child their words to a level where they can demonstrate confidence and fluency — key skills needed for later decoding and comprehension of text. ◆ Uniquely designed as a joint activity so that you are guiding your child through their learning. Think of it as being a bit like sitting down and reading a story with your child. ◆ When children learn a new words they are rewarded with a ‘Cambug’. These bugs have been designed by children for children. ◆ Statistics screen allows you to keep track of how many words your child knows and which they need to learn. This is very useful if being used in a school setting. Cambugs 3: First Words includes four activities: ‣ Sorting: Sort words into two piles (words your child knows and words that have yet to be learned ). This initial activity ensures the app is personalised to meet the specific learning needs of your child. ‣ Learning: Children learn a new word alongside words that they know already. This is called ‘interleaved learning’ and ensures your child remembers their words. ‣ Fluency Test: Children are timed to see how quickly they can say each word. The app automatically puts words that your child has not yet learned fluently back in the unknown pile to be re-learned at a later date. If your child likes the competitive element of the test, switch on the “Time Challenge”. ‣ Bug Collection: Your child can add new bugs in their collection whenever they learn new words and they can visit this and interact/play with them at any time! Cambugs apps are developed and operate in line with the recommendations of world-famous educationalist and researcher John Hattie PhD. Hattie has detailed that “positive effects (of computer-assisted education) are achieved through the same applications of the same principles of learning that apply to all areas of human learning… and here is one hidden aspect: it is critical to realise that the computer is not ‘the teacher’. But what it can do is allow a human teacher or teachers to design and deliver instruction to other humans through a different medium, in a different manner”. — Hattie, J., & Gregory, Y. (2014). Visible Learning and the Science of How We Learn. 198-199.

Please try the free Lite version before purchase to ensure all functionality will work on your device. SHAPE CODING® by Susan Ebbels is a flexible app designed for teachers and speech and language therapists / pathologists to use with children and young people who are having difficulties producing and understanding English sentence structure and grammar. It uses the SHAPE CODING® system which has been shown in several research projects to help children and young people with language disorders increase the length and complexity of sentences they can understand and use and to improve the accuracy of their sentence production. The SHAPE CODING® system uses a visual coding system to show the rules for how words are put together in sentences, to develop the child’s understanding of spoken and written grammar and to develop their ability to use grammar successfully to express themselves. The system includes use of colours (word classes), arrows (tense and aspect), lines (singular and plural) and shapes (syntactic structure). These are all included in the app, but the professional controlling the app can choose which features display for individual students. Multiple “teachers” can use the app and each “teacher” can have multiple students. The app is personalised for each student. The app is designed to be flexible so that professionals can adapt the levels and information displayed to suit the current levels and targets of individual students. The default first setting for each new student includes only basic sentence structures. Further complexity can be turned on (and off) by the “teacher” and individual settings are preserved for each student between uses. The app is equipped with a basic set of words which can be inserted into the shapes to make sentences. However, additional words can be added for individual students, or indeed for all students working with a particular “teacher” (this can be useful for names and topics which are common across a class of students for example). These can either be added before a session with a student, or during a session and can be saved for future use if desired. The app uses text-to-speech, so that students who struggle to read can also use the app. This app assumes a certain degree of familiarity with the SHAPE CODING® system. For more information see www.shapecoding.com. Training on how to use the SHAPE CODING® system is available from https://training.moorhouseinstitute.co.uk/. For a demonstration of some of the features of the app see https://shapecoding.com/demo-videos/, and for Frequently Asked Questions see: https://shapecoding.com/app-info/faqs/. Follow us on Twitter @ShapeCoding, Facebook @ShapeCoding and Instagram @shape_coding or if you have any problems or feedback, please contact us at training@moorhouseschool.co.uk Please review our privacy policy https://shapecoding.com/privacy-policy-apple/