Spellcaster Mini-Games

Game Design

Mini-Games in Spellcaster

Each mini-game in Spellcaster supports key components of structured literacy through engaging card-based gameplay. Games progress in difficulty following our systematic scope and sequence, ensuring learners build skills in a research-backed progression.

Design Principles:

• Focus on specific literacy sub-skills essential for reading and spelling
• Card-based mechanics that provide multisensory engagement
• Clear audio and visual feedback for self-correction
• 90% mastery requirement before level progression

Core Skills

Sound Recognition and Manipulation

Mystic Match

• Primary Skill: Phonics - letter-sound correspondence
• Purpose: Develops the foundational skill of connecting speech sounds to their written forms, essential for orthographic mapping
• Gameplay: Match grapheme cards to spoken phonemes
• Learning Focus: Recognition of letter patterns and their sounds

Phoneme Forge

• Primary Skill: Phonemic awareness
• Purpose: Strengthens ability to manipulate individual sounds in words, a critical precursor to successful orthographic mapping
• Gameplay: Transform words by adding, removing, or changing sounds
• Learning Focus: Sound manipulation and phoneme isolation

Word Level Skills

Word Construction and Recognition

Word Weaver

• Primary Skill: Phonemic blending and encoding
• Purpose: Builds phonics skills through active word construction, linking speech to print
• Gameplay: Arrange letter cards to spell spoken words
• Learning Focus: Sound sequencing and word building

Heart Words

• Primary Skill: High-frequency word recognition
• Purpose: Develops automatic recognition of essential words through structured practice
• Gameplay: Practice with carefully selected high-utility words
• Learning Focus: Building sight word vocabulary systematically

Complex Language

Morphology and Sentence Construction

Word Sums

• Primary Skill: Morphological awareness
• Purpose: Develops understanding of word structure and meaning relationships
• Gameplay: Build complex words from bases and affixes
• Learning Focus: Word formation patterns and meaning connections

Sentence Builder

• Primary Skill: Syntax and sentence comprehension
• Purpose: Applies word recognition skills in meaningful contexts
• Gameplay: Construct sentences from word cards to match audio
• Learning Focus: Word order and sentence structure

Text Understanding

Reading Comprehension

Word Rifts

• Primary Skill: Reading comprehension
• Purpose: Develops meaning-making through contextual reading
• Gameplay: Complete cloze passages with appropriate words
• Learning Focus: Context clues and passage understanding

Learning Progression

Supporting Orthographic Mapping

Our mini-games work together to build strong orthographic mapping skills through:

Key Components:

• Systematic development of phonemic awareness
• Explicit instruction in letter-sound relationships
• Strategic teaching of word structure (morphology)
• Integration of skills in meaningful text

Progress Monitoring:

• Clear mastery requirements for each skill
• Ongoing review of previously learned content
• Detailed performance tracking
• Adaptive difficulty based on learner progress