Story Builder iPhone App, TOS Review

Story Builder for iPhone from the Mobile Education Store is an app that helps children learn to tell a sequential story from a picture using prompts and questions or just to a picture. It is available for $5.99. After downloading the app, the parent sets up the level of difficulty within the game for each child, and an email address so that stories can be emailed for later replay.

There are 3 levels of play, 50 pictures, and over 500 audio clips to help the child learn to form a story. The levels and other settings can be adjusted in the settings tab. This is what the settings screen looks like:

The child gets a picture like the one below and, if using level 1 or 2, and a question to answer about the picture. The child will then press record and talk about the story, telling what happened. After he finishes his story or answers the question, the child presses Stop (the record button turns red and says stop). If a mistake is made, that section can be re-recorded by pressing record again. After several iterations of this (in Level 1 and 2) the child can play the story back. If desired, the audio file can be emailed to the specified email address. There is no way to save stories except through emailing them. When next picture is pressed, the story will be erased and the new one is recorded. Level 3 is a picture. The prompt is, "Make a story about the picture. Make sure to use complete sentences."

Overall I like this app. I really like the ability to record and email the sound files of the best stories because it is always fun to hear the children's voices later. The email will contain an image of the picture as well as a .caf sound file which I was able to listen to in Quicktime. I also liked that the voice asking the questions was not a robotic sounding voice. In fact, there are several different voices that are used to prompt for the pictures. One thing that I think needs work is the Parent Center access. When you click Parent Center, it asks for the answer to a simple multiplication problem to "make sure you are a parent". This is great for children under 7 or so, but it does little to verify parental status in a child who knows simple multiplication.

Strawberry loved this game. She would sit on my lap and during her brother's swim lesson and we would talk about a story and record it. She liked hearing herself talking back.
Piglet and Pumpkin Pie also had fun recording stories.

I tend to be pretty media stingy in my home; however, I do like to have some good games on my iPod for helping a child get through watching another child's practice or something like that. I prefer not to use mindless games so this works really well. I get to have a few minutes to hold my child on my lap and talk about stories and the child is engaged in something fun. I love that this game can be used with all of my children. It could even be used in the car with one person starting the story and then the next person finishing it.


Disclaimer: As a member of the TOS Crew, I received this product, at no cost to me, in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are mine.