Friendly Phonics

FRIENDLY PHONICS APP

Website development, iPad design, iPad development, Video post-production

Friendly Phonics is a series of brilliant educational apps, aimed at helping people of all ages and nationalities to learn the English language in a fun and engaging way. Dawn Matthews, acclaimed educationalist and printmaker, is the creative powerhouse behind the apps. She shares and utilises her extensive expertise through all the considered features included in the apps.

Dawn understands first-hand what it’s like to learn differently. She is dyslexic, epileptic, dysrpraxic, ADHD and CDPD.

EDUCATION AWARD-WINNER

Friendly Phonics won an EdTech App Design Award in 2015, a national competition recognising the top apps in various categories across the country. It has also received App of the Week in Business News 2015, identified as an app to look out for. Friendly Phonics received a 5-star review from the Educational App Store. You can read the full review here

DIGRAPH SOUNDS AND BOSSY ‘E’

Dawn has since released her second app, Digraph Sounds and the third, Bossy ‘e’. The apps are free to download. You can try the first 3 items for free and then pay a very reasonable fee to access the full app. If you want to add more variation to the artwork pop-ups, users simply need to jump into settings and select one of the art packages they like best.

EVERY DETAIL MATTERS

Students using the app can go through each letter of the alphabet, enjoying hand-drawn animations, illustrations and paintings on each screen.

In order to learn letters correctly, people need to connect the sound and the look of a letter together. Meticulous attention to detail has been put into this app.

Dawn has recorded voices of ordinary people ranging in age from 5 to 85, encouraging users to repeat the process. This gives the app a beautiful human quality; from hearing the sounds of breathing, lip and mouth movements.

Tracing each letter has been tested to the millimetre to make sure it correctly teaches the shape, without being so difficult that users find the process intimidating.

Unsteady hands, poor hearing, colour-blindness and motor problems have all been accounted for too. While the app is stunning to look at, there is a lot more to it than meets the eye.