Products >> Spellyfish Phonics - FAQ

FAQ

Does Spellyfish allow you to create/edit your own spelling lists?

No. At this time Spellyfish does not allow you to create/edit your own spellings lists.

What is "reverse phonics" (or phonics encoding)?

Spelling in many ways is the opposite skill to reading. When you learn to read you learn letters and letter combinations and what sounds they can make. With spelling you know the sound in a word, but not the letter combination required to spell that sound. In Spellyfish our app breaks words down into the smallest units of sound and then teaches kids what letter combinations can make that sound. This is our unique "reverse phonics" approach.

So for example if you are trying to spell the word 'sat', the hint system would break the word into three sounds for the student 's' 'a' & 't' If the child clicked on the 's' hint it would show two choices: a letter 's'; and a letter 'c'.
This because a soft 'c' can make the 's' sound when it is followed by the letters E, I or Y in the English language.
The contextual spelling rules in the powerful hint system of our spelling app also teaches students this soft 'c' spelling rule, so that they understand when a letter 's' must be used in a word instead of a letter 'c'.

An example of a soft 'c' would be in the word "city". Where the letter 'c' makes the 's' sound, because it is followed by the letter 'i' (which is a spelling rule).

Spellyfish provides a hint system that breaks down every word provided in our spelling app into its phonemes.

How do I practice just the words that I haven't mastered yet?

There are two ways to practice words that have not been mastered.
1) After reaching the end of a word list, the button on the Main Menu will change to display two curved arrows indicating you can retry just the "Missed Words". Clicking on this button will create a list of just the words that have not been mastered yet.
2) Upon reaching the end of a spelling list, a summary of how many words were mastered is displayed. If you click on the "Keep Practicing" button, you will be presented with a "review" list that contains only the words that you have not yet mastered.

What are the spelling lists that are included in Spellyfish?

If you already own Spellyfish, you can view the words from the "Your Progress" menu by clicking on the graph icon at the bottom of the screen. In addition we have a complete listing of all the word lists on our website:

Spellyfish- Short A Words.
Spellyfish- Short I Words.

Why is there no sound?

The most common reasons for not hearing any sound in the application are:

1) The device's mute button is turned on.

2) The volume setting on the device is set too low.

3) The volume setting in the app's settings menu is set too low (the settings menu is accessed by tapping on the white cog icon on the bottom tool bar).

Is there support for a QWERTY keyboard layout along with both lower and upper case letters?

Yes, Spellyfish supports these as well as other options that can be set individually for each user account. Simply tap on the arrow button in the top left corner of the screen and then tap on the cog/settings icon that appears to view all the options that are available on the Settings Menu.

What languages are supported?

Spellyfish is English only at this time and teaches only English spelling.