Word! What an adventure

SANDPOINT — Farmin Stidwell first grade teacher Nicole Dash doesn’t have a hard time getting her students to learn their sight words — in fact, they look forward to it.

Take second-grade students Jack Preston, Emmett Adams and James Howerton for example. When Dash asked if they wanted to practice their sight words, they excitedly agreed. The three boys crowded around the class computer, eager to get started. James wondered with understandable impatience when it would be his turn.

It’s all thanks to “Sight Word Adventures,” a web-based computer game she’s designing with local video game developer Jonathan Monks and music composer Tami Gunter.

The game is crafted to help first grade students learn the top 200 sight words — one of the major literacy goals in early education. As the most frequent words to appear in text, sight words are typically memorized at an early age to increase literacy and fluency. “Sight Word Adventures” transforms what could be a tedious chore into entertainment.

“Kids are just born for technology these days — they’re technology natives,” Dash said. “With a game, they can try 100 times and just keep going, whereas with flash cards, you’re lucky to keep them going two or three times.”

“Sight Word Adventures” schools its young audience with game design mechanics both simple and elegant. Play environments are structured into what will eventually be eight worlds themed around fantastical environments. The first world is designed as an underwater kingdom, but worlds in production will take shape as enchanted forests or fairy tale lands filled with dragons and wizards. Those worlds are further subdivided into levels, each of which deals with a different set of sight words.

“My favorite is level four (of the undersea world),” said Emmett. “It has a giant fish.”

Each level features point-boosting collectibles and hidden surprises for the player to discover. Meanwhile, enemies scattered through the environment add a challenge for players to avoid or battle through unique abilities. For example, the mermaid protagonist of the first world can throw starfish.

All those elements add a dose of fun to the game’s primary objective: teaching sight words. The first world features the most common words used in written language — primarily articles like “the” or conjunctions like “and.”

The game voice-over instructs players to find these words, which are scattered as icons around the level. Finding the right words advances the player through the level.

After a player progresses through every level in a world to establish a base of knowledge, they test their skills in a boss battle. These lightning rounds send the entire list of sight words in waves at the player, who must shoot a different assigned word each time. Teachers can inspect their students’ progress through an in-game list detailing errors and correct answers.

“This is a really good idea for kids who don’t know their sight words,” Jack said.

All art assets in the game are handmade by Dash herself, which Monks scans and codes into the game using the HTML5 markup language. Dash’s students even get in on the fun by making suggestions, many of which end up in the game.

“They love helping come up with ideas,” Dash said.

 A project still in production, “Sight Word Adventures” will likely be completed sometime this spring, teaching a total of 200 words. Monks is also focused on making the game touchscreen friendly for the many iPads that will soon be used in local classrooms. In the meantime, the game is sure to get plenty of use from Dash’s first graders, who can’t wait to do their homework.

Info: www.sightwordadventures.com