Catch Time

A time-based reaction game designed to assist those with dyslexia in telling the time. It contains two mini games and a ‘Time to Go’ tool. It is accompanied by a variety of customisation options.
The games have been designed as a result of extensive PhD research and the content is specifically organised to target weaknesses in time-telling, discovered from this study. The simplicity of layout and the easy functionality enable regular and consistent practice and automatic recording of success. It is recommended that practice at these games be encouraged for a minimum of two minutes per day to achieve mastery.
There is an overlay function to enable individuals who prefer a coloured background to choose a colour suitable for their personal needs.
‘Lifetime’ is designed to offer a broad spectrum of time activities which are appropriately levelled for children and adults and those with developed time-telling skill. The content fits neatly into the national curriculum and is therefore useful as a support tool in the classroom. There is a scoreboard to monitor progress and as mastery becomes achieved, performance improvement might develop into competition with others.
‘Time Check’ is a multiple choice game which presents four possible analogue times to be matched with a corresponding digital time. Comparative, observational and scanning skills are challenged for individuals to pick the right time. Cognitive skill improvement comes about through having a multiple choice presentation offering some level of clue for understanding.
‘Time to Go’ is a tool designed to help individuals in a stressful situation deal with time management for planning and decision making. For example, in a busy railway station, typing in the digital time of the train you require automatically sets a useful countdown time summary with audible alarms to remind you of the train’s departure. This simple but effective tool eases time pressure for individuals to then concentrate on other aspects of their journey, such as locating the platform.
‘Time is Right’ is a yes/no game that mimics the research experiment and gives individuals the opportunity to further improve their skill with time-telling and is seen as the next level of time telling mastery over ‘Time Check’. Presented as a direct comparison, this game offers a more challenging task to ‘Time Check’ relying much more on the memory for the times offered.
The two games offer a challenging environment for learning time by using procedural approaches for early time telling and retrieval strategies as mastery develops.