You might have noticed that Smarty Ears has been releasing big updates to some of their early apps. This week they released an update on R Intensive. When I saw the update I knew many of you would be eyeing it because I’m sure I’m not the only one with many /r/ kids on my caseload! Smarty Ears provided with the code, but the opinions are mine!
Within my articulation only caseload, the elusive /r/ remains my highest incidence. I was excited to have 415 new stimulus pictures to use with my caseload. Luckily much of my /r/ caseload is grouped together so I tested it out with them!
Start the game by entering your students with an avatar or picture. You may add up to 4 players at one time. Touch their picture to select the people participating in today’s group. The home screen also contains a ‘quickplay’ option where you do not select students for data collection.
The next page lets you select Flash Cards, Matching or the Guess What game. 
A phonetic approach is used to target the following sounds: air, ar, ear, er, ire, or, prevocalic r, rl and clusters. Select one or more sounds to target.
Within the flashcards section you may work at the word, phrase, or sentence level. I like starting with the word then saying the phrase and sentence level immediately following. Large red, yellow, and green circles at the bottom keep track of data. Arrows allow you to move back and forth between stimulus words. Each time you move to the next stimulus word, the player in the corner switches indicating someone else’s turn.
In the matching game you can work on more than one type of vocalic /r/ target. You choose either word, phrase or sentence level. Play the matching game, repeating the stimulus word/sentence given by the iPad. The game includes 20 cards and can also be played with up to 4 players.
The third option for play is a Guess What game. Students are given a clue (What type of shape has four equal straight sides?) and guess the answer. They can then tap the screen to reveal the answer. I found my students were busy with the cognitive task of the game that their accuracy decreased, making this a great activity for carryover.
The data collection on this app is up to par with other Smarty Ears apps. Each player has a continuous ‘report card.’ Information is stored about the type of activities completed, the duration, and how many participants. When you complete the flashcard activity, accuracy percentages are gathered as well as specific data about sounds at each difficulty level. You can email or print data from the iPad.
The R intensive app is available for iPhone, iPad or iPod touch. Smarty Ears wants to give one copy to a SRN follow! Enter via the rafflecopter gadget below! a Rafflecopter giveaway
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