App review: Signed Stories

Signed Stories is a storytelling app offering animated children’s stories with British Sign Language (BSL) translation.

Available free on iOS and at itv.com/signedstories (charges for some books, from 99p)

Ages: 0 to 10

Review

Theo

Reviewed by Michelle, mum to Theo (5) who is moderately deaf and wears hearing aids.

"The Signed Stories app offers a surprising amount of free content, as well as a good range available to buy. We downloaded Three Billy Goats Gruff as our first text for free. You can choose whether the subtitles and BSL translator are on or off, and choose the subtitle font. We kept both the subtitles and signer on. Theo happily engaged with the story and was able to recall some of the signs used afterwards.

The app includes a BSL dictionary with video clips of the signs used in the story. Each time you download a new story or nursery rhyme, the signs from the new story are added to the dictionary. Having watched Three Billy Goats Gruff a couple of times, Theo was able to navigate the app himself, and chose a few more items to add to his virtual bookshelf. His favourite at the moment is the nursery rhyme Alice the Camel. Theo’s siblings like to join in when he’s using the app. It’s a real family affair!

We’ve also discovered that the look of the bookshelf can be personalised further by choosing different backgrounds, and downloaded books can be sorted into various categories. It’s a really user-friendly app. It’d be lovely to see some of his favourite books on here in the future too."

Theo adds: “The pictures are good. I like doing it myself. My favourite is Alice the Camel.”