Tech Tuesday - Apps for Writing - Mrs. Plemons' Kindergarten

Today I have some of my favorite writing apps to share with you…

1. Story Creator – FREE!!

I’d have to say that this is by far my favorite for use in kindergarten. It is very simple for the kids to use, and doesn’t have too many options for colors/ stamps/ clip art etc. to distract them from actually writing. It allows the kids to draw or use a photo, write text, and then record their voice reading it.

When they record their voice they can see the text. When you play back their recording it highlights the words as they are read which is great for concepts about print. It’s not perfect but you can adjust the recording with the words if you want. It is also very easy to email the story when it is finished which is great for me as a teacher so I don’t have to look at each students iPads to read their stories.

2.StoryKit-FREE!!

This one is my old favorite before I found Story Creator. It has essentially the same capabilities as the Story creator app, but offers more options for colors/brushes to draw with. this sometimes became distracting to my kinders so I would end up with very elaborate coloring and very little writing at times. I had to more closely monitor this one. Also when students record their voice the text is not visible so it was difficult for the kids to remember what they were recording unless it was one short and simple sentence.

3. Scribble Press – 3.99

This one is great to use later on when students get better at writing. There are a lot of options for drawing tools, stamps, and stickers. There are also story templates and great sharing tools to make it public to the whole world. One drawback is that there is no voice recording feature, which is a huge time saver in kindergarten because I don’t have to personally sit with each child to have them read to me in the beginning when I cant decipher their attempts at phonetic spelling. I started using this one after my students became great at using the other writing apps though, so most students writing was to the point that their attempts and auto correct helped a lot in making their stories readable. I would recommend using the FREE apps first and then trying this one out when you feel your kids are ready for more!