Spelling Balloons

Want an accessible app that helps teach and reinforce how to read and spell words, all while playing a game? Spelling Balloons is an engaging, fun activity that will do just that!

Spelling Balloons was designed with input from kids, parents, teachers and therapists as a way for children to learn, and practice recognising, high-frequency words – all while playing a balloon-popping game that’s easy to learn but also a challenge.

Why Spelling Balloons? PKCLsoft creates apps that are affordable, educational, engaging and accessible – because all children deserve to learn and become proficient communicators and readers.

The benefits of playing Spelling Balloons include:

  • Sight word recognition skills increase
  • Increased proficiency and fluency in reading
  • Lots of audio processing practice
  • Game play requires the player utilise visual scanning and visual discrimination skills

Educators will love being able to read a detailed report (which can be shared via eMail, Messages, or Airdrop) on each game a student plays and Spelling Balloons is also fully customisable:

  • Create your own word lists, and share them via eMail, Messages or Airdrop.
  • The app supports iOS localisation features for both language and voices. Word lists are aligned with the language of your device; supporting English, Spanish, French and Dutch.
  • You can record your own voice for any word in the word lists; or adjust the pronunciation if you need to.
  • Set up a profile for each player and tailor the game play to suit each child’s strengths and challenges.
  • Easily turn sounds and music on or off.
  • Select the speed of play, how many balloons appear on screen and how many questions there are per game.
  • You can adjust the speed of the audible prompts used.
  • The game can be played with a compatible switch interface or bluetooth keyboard and switch settings can also be customised.


IMPORTANT NOTE:

The word lists that come with the app have all been localised for Australian spellings. If you are seeing incorrect spellings (e.g. Gray instead of Grey) then it will be because your device has it’s regional setting incorrectly set. Just remove the app, change the regional setting to English (Australian) and reinstall the app.

Regional settings may be found in the Settings app at: General->Language & Region. In here be sure that the language is English (Australia), and Region is set to Australia.

VOICES AND PRONUNCIATION NOTE:

Did you know that your iOS device can speak, and that you can improve the quality of the voice? Spelling Balloons uses the voice in your device, but if you don’t do anything you may be listening to a very computerised voice. You can (for most languages) ask your device to download an “Enhanced Quality” voice by starting the Settings app, and navigating to: General->Accessibility->VoiceOver->Speech->Default Dialect. At this setting you can choose the language you want to use, and whether you want the default computerised voice, or the Enhanced Quality voice.