Do your students struggle with grammar? Mine often do. This admission sometimes feels like a dirty secret to be hidden away. Yet, the way the human brain processes language is fascinating—and incredibly intricate. In the push to meet goals and achieve grade level targets, perhaps we sometimes forget what a difficult task we are actually putting before our students. Considering the complexity of the English language, is it any wonder that it takes students a long time to master grammar skills?

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Practice is imperative to helping students improve their language abilities. Ideally, most of this practice will come as an integrated portion of reading and writing instruction. Using language skills in context, through real-life tasks, is always going to be the best way for students to gain deep understanding. That being said, teachers know that practice in any form can be helpful for students who are struggling.

Technology provides teachers and students with such varied opportunities to approach learning in different ways. With all the buzz around project-based learning and higher-order thinking, we may sometimes dismiss too quickly the ways in which simple practice can be utilized in the classroom, especially with struggling students. Even these basic activities can be applied in positive ways, and with a little creativity, extended to further enhance learning.
I recently had the opportunity to use the Grammar Pop app with my students. The app was designed by Mignon Fogarty, aka “Grammar Girl.” Many readers may be familiar with the Grammar Girl’s blog, Quick and Dirty Tips, which offers all kinds of useful grammar tidbits for adults and students. The app is game-based, requiring players to race against a clock to identify the parts of speech in increasingly complex sentences. As the game progresses, the player is able to earn rewards and unlock more difficult levels.

As far as educational game apps go, Grammar Pop is pretty typical. However, it addresses an area that many students struggle with, and grammar practice apps aren’t particularly plentiful. Grammar Pop fills a specific need, and will appeal to students who are more easily engaged through game-based learning, or who learn best through repetition. 

Apps such as Grammar Pop are excellent resources to provide for students when they have down time or as options for rewards and recess on rainy days. Every teacher understands that each minute in the classroom is valuable, and needs to be put to productive use. Keeping fun and engaging educational apps such as this one in supply can help fill in some of these small bits of time with opportunities to learn.

Not only can a practice app be used to keep students engaged in educational content, but they can also be used to spark an interest in students that leads to more in-depth inquiry. For instance, a student trying to achieve the next level on Grammar Pop, who doesn’t know how to identify a particular part of speech, could be encouraged to do some independent research in order to meet their goal. This app contains highly complex sentences in the higher levels, which may lead students to investigate beyond what they would normally study as part of their grade-level curriculum.

It can be tempting to dismiss out of hand any technology tools that don’t immediately appear to require those coveted higher-order thinking skills. But it is always important to realize that using technology effectively often isn’t about the technology at all—it is about how the technology is utilized. Viewing every available tool as an opening to create significant learning experiences ensures that students are not deprived of any opportunity to practice the skills they are working so hard to master, in any way that appeals to their specific learning needs.    

Lindsey Fuller is a sixth grade teacher in Decatur, Illinois. Her interests are classroom technology integration, literacy instruction, and Common Core curriculum development and implementation. You can read more from Lindsey on these topics at her blog, Tales of a 6th Grade Classroom.