Can I turn off the timer in the iPad apps?

While it is not possible to turn the timer bar off, it is possible to reduce the difficulty of tasks for students.

The objective in setting a time limit for each response is to facilitate rapid, automatic recognition of the targets to be learnt. The timer bar allows approximately 22 seconds for a response in the grapheme knowledge and blending/decoding tasks and approximately 40 seconds per response for each letter to be pressed in the segmentation/spelling tasks. 

Rather than removing the time limit, it is better to reduce the level of difficulty in the activities! Here are some things you could do to reduce the difficulty of the tasks for students:

1. Place the students at a lower level of difficulty in the activity menus

For example, in the BlendingSounds 1 Pro app, choose CVC words rather than CCVC words:

2. Load activities with a higher level of scaffolding support for the students (try starting with a 'Start Score' of 0 and an 'End Score' of 1

3. Use the 'Custom Activity' feature to select fewer targets for the student (you can also adjust scaffolding support as described above, setting the 'Start Score' to 0 and the 'End Score' to a low number):