Bloups! 1.3

This application offers a structured approach to learning to read through engaging and interactive exercises. Designed entirely by an educational orthoptist, Bloups emphasizes a gradual progression aligned with phonetic acquisition stages.

The pedagogical content includes:

• Syllable reading: varying difficulty levels from simple syllables such as "la", "ma", "ar" to more complex structures including sounds with visual confusions ("bo", "do", "po") and auditory confusions ("di", "ti").
• Word reading: starting with simple words like "rire", "tomate" and advancing to irregular words such as "femme", "monsieur".
• Timing feature (optional): allowing users to track and aim to improve their reading speed.
• Visual cues (energy vial): indicating progress by displaying the number of items correctly identified and remaining.

This application is particularly relevant for parents and educators working with early or intermediate readers, including children with reading difficulties such as dyslexia, autism, or other learning disorders. The program's design ensures that each level progresses step-by-step through the essential stages of syllabic reading acquisition. This scaffolding provides a balanced challenge that is both fair and motivating, respecting each child's individual pace.

The core focus on syllabic reading supports the development of both decoding skills and reading fluency. Since pseudo-word exercises require decoding each syllable without reliance on contextual guessing, the program promotes mastering both segmented (syllabic) and global (whole word) reading strategies—crucial competencies for becoming an effective reader.

The pedagogical objectives encompass enhancing reading speed, decoding accuracy, phonemic blending, and syllabic segmentation abilities. It also promotes automatisation in recognizing compound sounds (e.g., "ou", "on", "in", "en") and complex sounds ("g", "c", "aille", "ouille"). The inclusion of simple, complex, and irregular words helps bridge the learning between syllable recognition and real-word reading.

The game mechanics involve listening to an auditory prompt—be it a syllable, a syllabic structure, or a word—and selecting the correct answer from bubbles presented by virtual monsters. Successfully identifying five correct answers rewards the player with a brief gameplay page; reaching twenty correct responses ("full vial") introduces a new monster with increased reading complexity. The motivational goal is for learners to collect monsters and improve their timing, making the process of learning to read engaging and—dare I say—monsterously fun.

Additionally, an adult can customize the experience by unlocking specific monsters in advance, tailoring the difficulty to meet particular learning needs—for example, focusing on confusions among the visual-spatial letters b, d, p, q by unlocking relevant challenge levels.