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Players

A family shares this browser. Every player has their own records, floors, deck and settings; the child picks who is playing on the front page. The age sets each game's first starting level, a little under what that age usually manages; from the first run the player's own results take over.

Profile

Where the child finds things hard, area by area. Set each one from a specialist's report (its percentile rank, 1 to 99; 50 is the middle of children the same age) or by what you see: lower where it is harder, about 50 where it is like other children the same age. Leave an area blank if you are not sure. A report's word-attack or reading score is not one of these areas: leave it out. The plan below starts with the lowest areas and names the games that work on each and the puzzle-day tasks for it, and whether each is built like one of its games or practised by none. Nothing here is worked out from the games, and nothing here is ever shown to the child.

From a report dated (if you have one) The daily visit follows the plan: the Focus areas take turns, each on its one game (the plan below names it), the day ends on a calm thinking game, or on a school game when the school games are in, and every game stays under More games. It turns on by itself when an area is set; untick it to let the app choose the days. Games a day

The plan

The programme

A staggered plan: puzzle day builds a baseline first while the visit holds only the calm games; then the games of the areas the Profile page marks Focus join the daily visit (block 1; attention waits for block 2, and without a profile block 1 is working memory); three weeks later attention's games join (block 2); Sort Switch is the control and never joins; three weeks after that the review is due. A puzzle-day task that moves only when its own games start is the evidence that the practice carried over; one that moves before is practice at the task. The child's screen shows nothing of it: the cards simply follow. Every game stays one tap away under More games; a run outside the phase is noted below, never blocked.

The phases

Runs outside the phase

The six-week review

Settings

Spoken numbers and words (Parrot, puzzle day, Memory Cards) The announcer says a game's rule the first time it is played (Hear the rule says it again any time)

The announcer also says what a child who does not read yet would miss: a game's trick, its clues and the help printed during play, and each puzzle-day task's instruction on its Ready screen. It speaks with "Spoken numbers and words" on or off: that switch turns off only the recorded numbers and words of the games it names. The child's mute silences everything.

The numbers and the built-in spelling words are recordings of a real voice, so they sound the same on every device. The voice below reads only the words you add yourself, and it is the browser's own; pick the one that sounds clearest on this device and press Test.

Voice for your own words Automatic (the clearest the browser has) Test

No game and no puzzle-day task uses the microphone. Only Record my own, on the Sounds page, records, and what it records stays in this browser.

Sounds Sound level Music on the menu, the summary and the visit's ending (never during a game) Music level Minutes per day Lock the games after the daily minutes (a hard stop; off = the "done" message shows and play goes on) Include the school games

Games per visit

Math Facts Dojo deck

Pick the facts the child is learning. A few tables learned well come before many half-known.

Memory Cards list

The spelling words the child is learning, one per line, each with a short sentence after a colon so the spoken word cannot be mistaken for one that sounds the same (there: Look over there!). The built-in thirty are there to start. The word is said, then its sentence, then the word. Each word comes back on its own rhythm: tomorrow, three days, a week, two, a month, two months; a miss starts it over; the bulb's hint keeps it where it is.

Words per round

The speech sounds

The sound games (Word Builder, Sound Chef) and puzzle day's sound task say each sound on its own: "mmm", "sss", a short "d" with as little "uh" after it as a voice can manage. Each sound is recorded in several takes: a stop or a short vowel is cut from a word the voice says whole, a long vowel is the letter's name, a held sound is said on its own. Play hears the take the games use; the numbered buttons play the other takes, and the one you tap last is the one the games use from then on. A vowel letter shows both its sounds, short and long. If no take sounds right to you, press Record my own and say the sound once, short: your voice wins over every take, and Reset brings the built-in back.

A tap on a take is kept in this browser, for every player here, and does not travel with the export; the built-in takes are the ones every device plays. Record my own keeps your voice here the same way.

Puzzle day

Engagement: how much

How much the gym is used. These numbers say nothing about learning; a game that is played more has earned more practice, that is all.

Learning: what changed

Two kinds of number, kept apart. A game's level rises when the game gets easier for the player; only the check-ups say whether the practice carried over, and only against a baseline taken before practice on that task began: a task built like a game shows it carried over to that kind of task, and a task no game practises is the stronger sign that the ability itself grew. On each chart the band is that baseline (the mean and one spread of the sittings before the first practice run), the dashed pink line marks the first check-up after practice began. A point after the line beyond the band on the better side is worth watching, not yet evidence: with a band of a few sittings, about one sitting in four or five lands there by chance, and the tasks rise with repetition too. The six-week review on the Programme page reads the sittings by its rules.

The games: the level reached

The check-ups

Results

Everything below lives only in this browser. Export it to a file to keep it: this player, or the whole family in one file (the file goes to your Downloads folder).

Kept on this device

Records

The Start column is the level a game's next run starts at. Type a level and press Set to place a player yourself: it wins over the runs before it, and later runs adjust from there. A level fixed on the Games page wins over it while it is set. How the start moves by itself, and how points and records are counted, is on the Games page. The bars are the last fifteen scores, the line the record.

Runs (newest first)

The games

What each game works on, as a picture: a solid badge for the area it works on most, a dashed one for an area it also uses where a published source supports it. Under More: the words, the sources, where puzzle day would show it, and its levels and points. For each game you choose the daily set (App decides: the game takes its turn; Every day; Not daily: it stays one tap away under More games) and the level (Adapts: the game follows the child's play; Fixed: it stays on the level you pick, and a miss brings help instead of an easier level). The child sees only each game's main badge, on its start screen; the choices stay here.

The dots on each card say what practice is known to do, in rows: this game, tasks like it, and other tasks of the same ability, ones the child never practised. Filled, shown in studies; half filled, smaller or less sure; empty, not shown. The practice lines come from the research files. In studies of brain-training games the game practised gets easier, tasks built like it less so, and other abilities, school work and daily life little or not at all; lasting gains are weak. Where studies found more, on the ability itself, measured by tests outside the practice: spatial practice and spatial tasks never practised g = 0.48 (a meta-analysis of 217 studies of spatial training, children to adults); working-memory practice and heard working memory (backward digit and listening recall; the practice itself included recalling digits backwards) d = 0.99 (one trial of 94 children aged 7 to 9 with low working memory, against the same practice held easy); sound practice and children's sound skill d = 0.86 (the National Reading Panel's analysis).