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"There are some great apps available for little ones who are learning their alphabet or are actually learning to read and write. Here are a couple that might work in your classroom."

Lessonwriter creates lesson plans and instructional materials for teaching English language skills from any reading passage How it works- Copy & paste any text you choose into LessonWriter; LessonWriter analyzes text for vocabulary, grammar and usage, pronunciation, and word roots and stems; Then, LessonWriter writes a lesson plan and a lesson that teaches the skills you chose in the context of the passage - automatically.

"iTooch Junior High School, by edupad Inc., is not only a state of the art and completely comprehensive educational app, it is exciting, effective and enormously fun! iTooch Junior High School has more than 10,000 exercises in ELA (reading, writing vocabulary, grammar) and Math (properties and operations, graphs, algebra, geometry, statistics and probability, and data analysis) and Health - Grade Six."

"Invention literacy is the ability to read and write human made stuff, from toasters to apps. People think inventors perform magic, but invention is no more magical than reading and writing a sentence. There is a grammar to inventing from mechanical tools, to design thinking, coding, and beyond. There is a literature of inventions, from bicycles to televisions, all around us to draw inspiration from. "

"For one language arts class project, a middle school teacher in Shelburne, Virginia, Chad Sansing, asks his sixth graders to read Peter Cherches's 1986 poem "Lift Your Right Arm," and then translate it into computer code. The poem occurs in action sequences-for example, "Lift your right arm, she said./I lifted my right arm." Sansing and his class conceive a list of actions, sketch ideas of how to code them, using icons or letters, and then code the poem. In doing so, the students become producers of both a new language and way of seeing poetry. Sansing's students have also translated the poem's code into Scratch, to create animation, and into LEGO Mindstorms EV3, a robot-programming language. This innovative way of engaging students with poetry is just one example of how educators are increasingly integrating transmedia techniques in their teaching and assessments. What is the point of this activity? "To help kids see connections between grammar and code," says Sansing who shares his lessons on his "Classroots" blog."

"I just learned through Learning in Hand that the iPad app Sentence Builder is now free for a limited period of time (used to cost $4,99). Sentence Builder is an app that provides language practice for young learners. It basically helps them learn about words, pronunciation, grammar and punctuation."

"It's inevitable that the kids of Generation Z will be the most naturally tech-literate generation yet, but that won't happen through osmosis. They'll still need tools to get them there. Kids older than 10 or so are covered: In the past few years, smart companies like littleBits and Kano have helped pave the way toward make learning about circuitry and motherboards as fun as playing with Legos. But those products are still a bit sophisticated. Think of them like the grammar and syntax of computer science: great educational tools, so long as you can already grasp a few basic building blocks. To get those building blocks-let's call it the alphabet-younger kids can now turn to Hackaball, a ball that's also a computer, that gets programmed via an iPad app."

"In response to some of the requests I received this week regarding iPad apps for early literacy. I decided to arrange apps into different categories and in different posts. Today's list features apps to help your kid or student temper with the notion of words. These are basically word games and puzzles that scaffold vocabulary and grammar learning. Enjoy"