Author: Jan: Chief Frog

Who knew this could be fun?

Jan: Chief Frog Uncategorized 0

The goal of this blog is to describe life here at Happy Frog Apps. As a new start-up with (nearly) 3 apps in the app store, one of our major focuses needs to be marketing. We can’t help families and kids if they don’t know about us!

Now, I’d rather be designing our next app, but I recently came across a tool that makes market research…dare I say it… fun!

The tool is called SensorTower and it is fabulous for market research.

I thought I’d share some of the fun things I’ve been investigating 🙂

My first shock came when I discovered that our Inference Ace app was #3 in the app store for our main key word!!! Wow!!!! And it has only been up for a day. I am very happy to do market research if I get nice surprises like that!

Next I decided to work on the key words for each app, since apparently this is pretty important for ranking in the app store. SensorTower showed me that we definitely have some work to do to improve our key words.

This is good to know, since I had no clue how to choose key words. Should I use difference variants of the same word? Should I repeat words from the title for extra emphasis. SensorTower has helped me figure out what I SHOULD be doing. Too bad I have to wait for the next app update to improve the key words!

It was also fun checking out our competitors. I learned some interesting information about all of them, which leads to the next benefit I gained from my research.

I’ve learned a lot about how to target our apps so we reach the exact audience we are after. One of the benefits of our apps is that they are really designed with special needs kids in mind. But we don’t explain that benefit very well or make ourselves visible for parents and teachers with those issues in mind. Sensor Tower has helped me understand that we need to do that AND has helped me figure out how to do it.

And all this from 2 hours of work on the free version of the application. Not bad!!! And I had fun doing it!

But for now, it’s back to the apps. Clue Master is very close to being finished, with the content developers doing the final touches to the data. I’ll tell you about it in my next blog post.

Wh Expert 2 is Available!

Jan: Chief Frog app annoucement 0

17Apr

Yay! Our very first app ‘WH Expert 2′ is available on the app store!

2? Yes, we started with the second in our series. Why? Because that is what the kids in my life need right now 🙂

Like all our apps, WH Expert 2 focuses on building a specific skill that is required for reading comprehension. In this app, kids learn what meaning is added by a particular phrase. It helps kids figure out that ‘because he was sick’ tells us WHY, ‘with Katy’ tells us WHO, and ‘in the park’ tells us WHERE.

This skill is a precursor to be able to answer questions like: Did the paragraph tell us where John is? Do we know why John stayed home? Why did John stay home?, etc.

Kids must be fluent in this skill to comprehend text as they read, so our app builds in fluency in the last 6 levels. Your child will need to beat the clock to move on to the next level!

Have fun with this app. I hope this forms one step in your child’s road to excellent comprehension!

If you have ideas for apps, please let us know as we are totally driven by the needs of kids. If you have any trouble with our apps, please let us know via this website as we want you to have the best experience possible!

If you love our app, please review it on iTunes. It will make ALL the difference to us and help more kids get the support they need!

You can learn more about this app, see screen shots,etc on the app info page.

Happy learning!

Our first app is nearly ready!

Jan: Chief Frog app annoucement 0

10Apr

Well, it is very exciting to announce that our very first app will be available on the app store in about a week!

Since this is the first app from Happy Frog Software, I thought I’d explain the philosophy behind our apps.

We all STRONGLY believe in the importance of reading. And even though reading came easy to many of us, we see kids in our lives who are struggling. Really struggling.

These kids need more help than traditional curriculums can provide. They need more practice than typical kids do. And they DON’T need to be planted in front of a text and asked questions. (That’s like testing them on a skill we know they don’t have! How motivating is that!)

No, they need to practice the foundation skills that allow comprehension to happen. We KNOW they are struggling to comprehend. We need to teach them, not test them.

Our apps work on the foundation skills that lead to comprehension. These skills include:

knowing how different parts of a sentence contribute to the meaning (e.g. ‘at the beach’ tells us where something is happening.)
recognizing the links between sentences (e.g. that “John’ and ‘the man at the door’ refer to the same person.)
inference skills: adding information from our experience of the world. (e.g. if Jill is cleaning her teeth, then she is probably in the bathroom.)
and many, many more!

Each of our apps focuses on a particular skill and builds it up step-by-step. Your child will get the practice they need to develop fluency.

We will be building dozens of apps. I wish we had them all ready for you now. (In fact, I need them for my own family!) But we will get them to you as fast as we can.

Time to get back to work… gotta get that app finished!

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