Sound It First: Learn to Read

A bare letter appears on screen. Then, slowly, a picture of something that starts with that letter's sound grows in behind it: a becomes an apple, s becomes a snake, t becomes a tree.

Players race to call out the sound and the word. The earlier you call it, the more points you score. So children come to want to read the naked letter, and the picture arrives as the reward rather than the crutch.

SOUND FIRST, NOT LETTER NAMES What children race to call is the phoneme, "sss", not the letter name, "ess", and the pure sound is what the screen shows. That is the part that actually unlocks reading. The spoken line is a full sentence, "S is for Sun", because synthesised speech cannot voice an isolated sound cleanly.

RACE ON ONE DEVICE One to five players, each with a coloured buzzer along the edge of the screen. Pass the tablet round the table, or let a grown-up referee.

SPEED IS THE DIFFICULTY DIAL Start on Slow, fifteen seconds, for an absolute beginner. Work up to Zoom, three seconds, once they are confident. Optional auto speed-up nudges them faster as they get it right.

MORE THAN LETTERS Blends and digraphs, magic e, word families, sight words, and little books to read together. Plus numbers, counting, adding and times tables, and picture packs for animals, food, clothes, transport, weather and more.

BUILT FOR SMALL CHILDREN Big targets. No menus to wander into mid-game, exit is press and hold. No ads. No links out. No sign-up, no account, no data collected.

WORKS OFFLINE Every letter and picture is bundled inside the app, so it plays on a plane, in the car, and anywhere with no signal. No sign-up, no account, and no personal data is collected.

FROM CHALKBEE Made by the team behind ChalkBee, free printable phonics, reading and maths worksheets for parents and primary teachers at chalkbee.com.