Children (and ESL adults) can learn more than 2000 vocabulary words by exploring a virtually endless scrolling street scene.
(1) Touching random people, animals, or objects will cue children’s voices speaking individual words or short phrases or sentences (‘kangaroo’, ‘volcano, ‘He said we have a bear in our truck.’). Scenes designed to spark a child’s curiosity encourage children to learn words they want to learn.
(2) Entering any of 33 addresses for shops (Toy, Pet, Tool, Sports, Clothing, etc.), and other locations (Zoo, Park, School, Health Center, Home, Beach, etc.) opens a scrolling series of pictures in a total of 95 specific sub-categories. The ‘School’ category, for example, contains the sub-categories: Colors, Alphabet Letters, Shapes, Numbers, Addition. Scrolling horizontally allows a child to see two pictures side by side to compare the differences between ‘rhino’ and ‘hippo’, or ‘backhoe’ and ‘excavator’, or ‘green beans’ and ‘peas’. Text for each word appears below the picture; touching the picture cues audio in a child’s voice.
(3) Quizzes target words in each of the 95 sub-categories. Clicking a question mark button cues a screen with a randomly chosen word or phrase (‘frying pan’) from that sub-category spoken aloud and appearing in text above four randomly cycling pictures
(for example, ‘frying pan’, ‘stew pot’, ‘toaster’, ‘refrigerator’). A correct answer on the first attempt cues a ringing sound and a praise word or phrase (‘terrific’, ‘good job’, ‘How’d you get so smart?’) and earns a gold coin. An incorrect answer cues a blumpy sound. A correct answer on the second attempt cues the ringing sound and earns a silver coin. Coins for individual quizzes are displayed on the quiz screen, and children can cue another screen to see rewards for all quizzes combined. Two silver coins = 1 gold coin, 5 gold coins = 1 stack, 5 stacks = 1 bag, 5 bags = 1 armored car, 5 armored cars = 1 bank building, 5 bank buildings and the child has totally won and the game recycles.
(4) Children can play without a password, though teachers or parents have the option of signing in multiple children with separate passwords and the game will track each child’s progress individually.
(5) School systems may be interested in our free data analytics platform which can be custom designed for any school system and hosted on the school system’s server or website. Developed at Georgia Tech, the secure, password-protected platform can report to teachers and/or systems individual students’ scores on all quizzes.
(6) This game complements our sister literacy apps from the App Store: Brainy Phonics (and sight words) and Rhyme A Zoo.