SpeedySpeech - R Pro

This app has clearly been well designed and developed with a lot of research behind this development. From viewing the app’s website it is clear to see that experienced and qualified educationalists and speech therapists have had a large part to play and this adds a very weighty gravitas to the app itself. In fact the website itself has quite a lot of further information on it including videos that can help the user get the most out of the apps the developer produces. The app itself is based on a series of books produced by the same company and shares all the same content but obviously delivered in an interactive way. 

The main aim of the app is to help correct speech errors and help both children and adults (adults learning English as a second language) learn the English language. This is achieved by focussing on separate letters and sounds, currently this is R, S and L letters (which are available as separate apps) and then broken down into a number of different learning aspects covering everything a user needs to learn the spoken English language. These are split into Auditory Bombardment, Auditory Discrimination and Target Sound. Auditory Bombardment contains exercises that are aimed at helping the user to hear and focus on correctly reproducing the specific sound. For example a number of words with that specific sound appear on the screen and by clicking on each one the user is able to hear them correctly pronounced. Within this section the user can hear initial sounds, ending sounds, medial words and blend groups. This is set out in a simple way so the user can progress through them in the right learning order. In the Auditory Discrimination section the user has exercises that help them to distinguish the differences between sounds and then produce them themselves correctly. In the R app the exercises include the differences between w and r, p and r, l and r, and mixed pair examples. Within the exercises the user listens to two different, but similar words and then has to highlight the r sounding one and then record themselves saying it correctly, practising and compounding their knowledge. In the final part of the app, the Target Sound part, the user is required to work through a number of different activities including   vowel combinations, initial one syllable words, two syllable words etc. Initially in this part the user is expected to work first with the sound in isolation and then move on word, phrase and finally sentence levels. This is targeted in such a way that the user develops a systematic approach that is both sensible but also maximises their learning.

One of the biggest strengths of the app is its ability to track the user and the progress they have made/are making within the app. This is an excellent addition for an educational setting where the teacher/educator can target specific areas for improvement and make sure there is a personalised approach to the learning. As already mentioned the app can be used in a number of different ways, such as home use, however I would suggest that due to certain features such as this ability to personalise the learning through tracking that its biggest market is going to be education and speech therapy.

Overall the app is a good one that when worked through systematically can really help either a young child or someone learning English as a second language in correctly pronouncing and understanding word and letter sounds. The appearance of the app is also good and engaging and would not distract the learning throughout. The usability has also been well developed as there are hints throughout that give a good explanation, should the user require it, to help them.