Literacy Educational Game - Preview 1

[nibl]

This is the first short preview of a Renpy based educational game. There is no text because it is for teaching people to read.

Please take a look and let me know what you think. Read the homepage first so you know what it's about.

Looking for people to help with artwork and voice acting.

http://litnow.org/index.php/Lit/LitSoftware

[Wintermoon]

My first impression: too slow and long-winded.

[number473]

i would recommend that you find some way to get the student more engaged. He needs to be saying the sounds along or something like that. It's not possible to learn by just having a stream of data pored at you. You'll know what I mean if you ever had a lecturer that just talked on and on and on ...
Not that this is bad in that way, I'm just saying you need to get the student learning actively.

About the pronunciation, there is a difference in the way you say the 'a' sound in the words and when you are just saying what the sound is. Listen carefully again. When you say it on it's own you are pronouncing something closer to the u in cup. This is guaranteed to confuse a student.

Out of interest, what method of teaching reading are you basing this on, it seems to be phonetically based?

In contrast with what Wintermoon said, I think you could take it a bit slower, but increase the involvement of the student. And make it a bit more exciting!

[Alex]

Hm., strange thing - when you returns from preferences screen there will be no sound any more...the same, when you restore game from save. May be it is better to deactivate right button? or change script somehow...

[nibl]

Thanks for your replies number473, Wintermoon, and Alex, replies below.

@Wintermoon: I would have though it too fast. Remember the "player" cannot read at all yet. It's a lot of information in one go. You wouldn't believe how tricky it is to work Renpy for an illiterate user, since it's based on text being for VNs. All the speech has to sync to screen actions appearing and hiding, UI clicks etc.
That said, it's possible.

@numer473:

i would recommend that you find some way to get the student more engaged.

Maybe introduce quizing very early and have the quiz work seemlessly with the lecturing? Is that what you mean? So the lecturer doesn't drivel on too much?

I'm waiting for PyTom to fix cardgame in the next release so we can have the student move letters around to build words. It's on his to-do list so that's one thing to increase interaction.

Later the quiz buttons will start moving around and I can add sound FX. Any ideas for learning quizzes are highly welcome!

there is a difference in the way you say the 'a' sound in the words and when you are just saying what the sound is.

Can you tell me where. The "a" in ant should be the same in apple and in the quiz. I thought it was?

Out of interest, what method of teaching reading are you basing this on, it seems to be phonetically based?

Yes, I'm concentrating on learning sounds and associating them with letters.

And make it a bit more exciting!

Any ideas are welcome. What do you suggest?


@Alex: Do you know how to disable the right-mouse button?

Thanks again for the feedback so far, all is appreciated positive and negative...although constructive ideas are most helpful

[Alex]

Hope this will help http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewto ... ick#p79991

[nibl]

Hope this will help http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewto ... ick#p79991

Thanks, that did the trick

There is maybe a bug in that "voice sustain" does not work after calling other menus or prompts. If the user presses other keys like Alt+Q then replies No, sound is off. Guess I'll need to ask about that.

[number473]

The sounds in ant and apple are the same, but when you are just saying the sound on it's own it sounds different. The former is the 'a' in pat, the latter is the 'u' in cup.

As far as the excitement and the engagement go, I'm not really sure what to suggest. It is basically the care that a teacher that a teacher working one-on-one with a student and totally being interested in him learning it, with total patience, and also a cheerful and interested in what the student was experiencing attitude. That may not be really helpful to say, but if you could convey that in the program I think it would go a long way to getting the student interested.

[Wintermoon]

When I say "slow and long-winded", I am specifically referring to the long explanations, especially those that aren't directly related to the subject matter. More interaction would definitely be a good thing.

What is your target audience your this? Young children, older children or adults? Native English speakers or English as a second language? Developmentally challenged or normal intelligence?

For very young native English speakers, for non-native speakers, and for the developmentally challenged, the long stretches of spoken text might be confusing. Very young children might not have the patience to sit through them. Very young children are also likely to have an adult nearby whom they can ask for assistance, so it's not absolutely critical that the game explains everything.

On the other hand, if you are targeting people who already have a good grasp of spoken English, then they probably have at least some knowledge of reading. Maybe not enough to actually read fluently, but enough to understand the concept, and probably enough to recognize most of the letters of the Latin alphabet by sight. These people will not need long explanations.

I don't think it's necessary to have any spoken word in the game that isn't available in written form! Picture this:

Screen one: a card containing a picture of an ant with the caption "ant". Spoken word: "ant". At this point the user can recognize the written word "ant". He might not be able to associate the letters with the sounds and the knowledge is not yet in his long-term memory, but all of that comes later.

Screen two: the same thing for another word. Let's say "bird".

Screen three: picture of an ant on the screen. Spoken word: "ant". Two written words on the screen: "ant" and "bird". Do not advance until the user clicks on "ant". Give negative feedback if the user clicks on "bird". Animation of the user clicking moving the mouse pointer and clicking on a word if the user does nothing. No spoken explanation. Repeat for "bird".

Next couple of screens: introduce more words, then immediately quiz the user after each new word.

A bit later: start teaching individual letters using the same system, then immediately quiz some words using those letters.

Much later: move from words to complete sentences that only differ in a few words.

(A positive side effect of this system is that if the user doesn't start with a good grasp of spoken English, he can learn spoken English at the same time as learning how to read.)