Happi words is a fun and engaging word association game where children are shown a set of three images and must try to work out what word connects them. Children are given letter to choose from and they can use a range of in app supports such as finding out the word category e.g. verb, adjective or noun. They can also get a hint about the word that links the objects to one another, be given the first letter of the word and as a final option have all letters but the ones required for the word removed. The less support the learn uses the more stars they get and the more stars they get the more cards they can collect. The card collecting aspect of this game is a lovely feature whereby children receive cards for their stars and each card has a visually interesting character with a small one sentence back story which could in itself link nicely into other literacy work such as describing characters.
This is a nice app that can be used to look at a number of areas of literacy although its main focus is word association. Upon opening the app you are greeted with an attractive start screen with a handful of fairly obvious options. There is an option to create a user profile and this could become important as children learn and collect cards. There is a "my cards" option that takes you a small album style gallery where cards collect for achievement can be found and reviewed later. Right in the centre of the screen is a pulsating play button inviting the user to get started straight away.
The interface is very visual in appearance and engaging to children with nice illustrations and animations. Children must work through levels from 1 upwards and don't have the option to skip to a more challenging level. From this point on some will find the app obvious to use but some would probably benefit from on screen instructions or modelling of the activity which is absent from the app. The user is presented with three images which each appear one at a time as their name is read out by the in app voice. Under the images are blank boxes (where the world should be created) and below that, are moveable letter tiles to place into the boxes to create the word. One fairly major drawback to an app that involves spelling words, is that it uses American spelling so some words such as colour are taught as color.
The “life line” style support is effective and offers a degree of self-differentiation as it progressively increases the level of help that is given. First of all children can hit the word category group which will tell them if the word is a verb, noun or adjective. If this doesn’t help children, they can tap the hint button three times. The first time will give them a clue about the word associated to all three images. The second tap will offer the first letter of the word and the third tap will remove all letters but those required for spelling the word and the first letter still remains in place. There is a chance that children working independently will try to rush through by using all their clues with out really thinking about it but if a teacher were to make sure that collecting lots of stars and more interesting reward cards is reinforced this should offer incentive to the children to use as little support as possible in order to gain more stars.
