Speech With Milo: Interactive Storybook

I know an app is a good one when my 3 year old grandson returns to it, over and over again, coming up with new ways to interact with it every day.   Speech With Milo: Interactive Storybook  is one of those apps!

The first time through, my grandson was fascinated by the ability to make characters swing, change color, talk (an adorable little voice speaks Milo’s name), spin, and more.

The next time, he listened to the story about Milo going to the park and meeting his friends Melvin and Maggie.

After that, he enjoyed hearing the recording I made to go along with the story.

My grandson also likes pointing to objects after I name them, so he can hear the sounds such as the sheep bleating, the birds chirping, or the bees buzzing.

His latest variation is opening Talking Tom on my iPhone and playing Milo’s Storybook on the iPad so that Tom will repeat what he hears (either the story or the various interactive options).

Next week he’ll probably want to record himself telling the story.

The apps from Speech With Milo were created by Poorani Doonan,  a speech therapist, as portable learning tools for her clients, as well as for parents who want apps that help teach language skills such as predicting, retelling, answering questions, problem-solving and more.

The teacher or parent can also use the record feature of the Interactive Storybook to ask questions and/or think aloud about what’s happening in the story, thus providing support as the child reads/listens to the story when the adult isn’t right there.

The questions can be changed as the child develops the ability to respond to more involved questions.  In addition, the child can record questions for the adult to answer.

If a child has IEP goals addressing parts of speech, verb tenses, expressive or receptive language, etc., the Speech With Milo Storybook can be used to address those, too.  A neat feature would be some way to track progress and/or to email results to others involved in the child’s education.

Speech With Milo: Interactive Storybook is another delightful app that isn’t just for speech therapy! It’s a bargain at $1.99 in the iTunes store.*

For a preview of the book, check out the developer’s YouTube video here.

*disclaimer: I received a promo code from the developer for this app.