Falling Phonics

Falling Phonics is an App designed by a teacher of 15 years experience. It is aimed at Key Stage 2 children, 7 years and older. The player travels through an enchanted land collecting pieces of an amulet. The purpose of the game is to teach phonics/spelling through spelling patterns. Each game teaches one spelling pattern, e.g. ‘ur’, ‘ir’ and ‘er’.

Bricks fall from the top of the screen and the player uses the colour-coded sound squares to complete the word. The player hears each word as it falls, or alternatively they can press a brick to hear the word.

If the player wants to they can tip their device from side to side to move the falling bricks. They don’t need to do this though as the bricks spread themselves evenly across the ground.

As each row is filled it clears away, giving the player more time to play the game.

If an incorrect sound square is placed on a brick that brick will become temporarily locked.

Each game comes in 5 phases which can be set to ‘easier’ or ‘harder’. On the ‘easier’ level the first three phases teach the player how to spell the words by using colour-coded bricks and sound squares. Then the fourth phase keeps the colour-coded bricks but turns all of the sound squares yellow, (modest support), finally the fifth phase uses random colours of bricks and the player is on their own.

After a game is completed the player is rewarded with a piece of an amulet and a tick on the map.