WordQuest
Spelling without pain — through story, sound, choice and play.
The Wizard has stolen the world's words — and only your child can win them back. WordQuest wraps a complete structured phonics journey inside an epic, fully-narrated fantasy quest. Built for beginner spellers, children with spelling difficulties, learners of English as a foreign language — and any child who'd love a spelling adventure.
Not a worksheet. A world.
Most spelling apps drill. WordQuest enchants. Every phonics rule your child needs is hidden inside a story they won't want to put down.
📖 A real story, start to finish
Your child journeys through four magical lands — battling a Yeti with capital letters, riding a ghost train full of lost vowels, outsmarting the W Witch, and finally facing the Wizard who stole the world's words. Every quest they pass wins a piece of language back.
🗣️ Fully narrated, always
Every word of story, every instruction, every bit of feedback is read aloud in a warm, friendly voice — so emerging readers are never blocked by the very thing they're here to learn.
🧠 Real structured phonics underneath
Vowels and consonants, digraphs, Magic E, double-letter rules, the K-sound rule, syllables, compound words, suffixes, plurals, homophones, prefixes — a genuine scope-and-sequence dressed up as treasure, scrolls and spells.
Forty years in the making
WordQuest and The Book of Letters began life as two bestselling spelling-adventure gamebooks, published by Learning Development Aids and loved by a generation of learners — now long out of print. We've combined both books, extensively revised them, and rebuilt them as a digital adventure for iPad. The original "choose-your-path" magic is all here — now narrated aloud, animated, and richer than ever.
Underneath the story sits real expertise: spelling tasks drawn from over 40 years of work with dyslexia, including 27 years leading a specialist school. Widened for the app, it now welcomes beginner spellers and English language learners too.
Four lands. One epic quest.
Each part of the adventure unlocks new skills — and new dangers.
The Whispering Wood
Escape biting conson-ants, befriend a Yeti, answer the Hermit's riddles, and shoot the rapids on a runaway boat.
The Island of Words
Sail through a storm, dig for buried treasure, help a giant talking crab, and open a magic chest with Magic E Oil.
The Syllable Swamp
Cross a walled garden, defeat the W Witch, survive End Castle's phantom, and face the Syllable Monster itself.
The Wizard's Domain
Brave the cavern, free the Wise Ones, cross a pit of boiling lava — and defeat the Wizard to become the Champion of Words.
Hear a little of the magic
Real excerpts from the adventure — every line narrated aloud in-game.
You start your Quest in a dark wood. It is wet and cold… You sit by a big tree. The tree has a nest of insects in it. They are conson-ants! They bite!
In the dark you can see a shape — it is the Ghost of the train. He moans "a, e, i, o, u." He is a vowel ghost, but he has lost his vowels. You will have to help him find them.
A flash of lightning splits the sky! "So you dare to pass by me? I am the W Witch and I change the vowel sounds! You will not pass!"
As you reach for the book, a terrible Cave Wraith appears! "To leave this cave, you must prove you understand the Book of Plurals! One hand becomes two hands. One box becomes many boxes. Show me!"
The heat is terrible! Boiling lava bubbles far below. Stepping stones cross the lava — but each stone has a vowel spelling on it. You must step on the right stones to cross safely!
The Wizard crumbles to dust! The stolen words burst free and fly back to the world. Light floods the cave. You have completed Word Quest! You are the Champion of Words!
Every detail designed for kids who learn differently
Audio-first by design
Nothing depends on reading ability. Story, instructions, hints and feedback are all spoken — text is reinforcement, never a barrier.
Gentle with mistakes
Wrong answers get warm encouragement and another go — never a buzzer, never a fail screen. The adventure always moves forward.
"What might have happened…"
Get a quest right and you can peek at the gloriously silly fate you avoided. Kids replay quests just to see them.
Magical equipment
Phonics rules become treasured items — the Magic E Scroll, the Suffix Rule Sword, the Book of Plurals — collected and used on the journey.
A friendly guide
A magical cat companion pops up with tips, encouragement and the occasional "did you know?" — just when it's needed.
A living world
Each land has its own fantasy music, falling leaves, drifting snow and glowing embers. Confetti and crowns when you triumph.
Streaks & sparkles
Correct answers burst with gold. Build a streak and watch the flames grow. Effort feels spectacular.
Parent controls
Toggle narration, music, effects and text visibility independently — tune the experience to your child's needs.
Safe by default
No ads. No in-app purchases. No data collection. No internet needed once installed. Just the adventure.
Shaped by a child psychologist, page by page
Every quest, every word of feedback and every pronunciation has been reviewed and refined through hundreds of hours of testing.
"Children who struggle with spelling don't need more drilling — they need a reason to keep going. WordQuest gives them a story worth fighting for. The phonics progression underneath is genuinely sound, the feedback is kind, and the children I've watched play it simply do not want to stop. That is the whole battle."
Meet your guide
Every adventurer needs a companion. WordQuest's magical cat bounds onto the screen with tips, gentle hints and celebrations — making sure no child ever feels alone on their quest. She knows when to help, and when to simply cheer.
Made for the classroom too
- Dyslexia-first design — audio-led, low-pressure, structured phonics that mirrors how specialist teachers actually intervene.
- Self-directed — children progress through the story at their own pace, with no adult needed at the elbow.
- iPad-native — built for the devices already in your classrooms. Works fully offline.
- A real scope & sequence — from letter names to suffixing rules and homophones, in a research-informed order.
- District-friendly — no accounts, no student data collected, nothing to safeguard-review beyond the app itself.
Made by a father and son
Four decades of dyslexia expertise, meeting modern game design.
A pioneer in the recognition of dyslexia in the UK, Michael was a Research Fellow and Lecturer at the University of Aston in the 1970s and co-author of the Aston Index, a landmark screening test for children.
He wrote Developmental Dyslexia and The Psychology of Dyslexia, co-authored Dyslexia: A Teaching Handbook, and penned many children's stories for struggling readers.
A retired Educational Psychologist, he was Principal of East Court School — a specialist school for specific learning difficulties — for over 25 years. He wrote the original WordQuest gamebooks the app is based on.
Michael's son, Jamie holds a B.Sc. in Artificial Intelligence and a Teacher Training Certificate. He has taught in a Pupil Referral Unit and taught English as a foreign language — including founding and running an EFL school in Japan.
He is founder and developer-CEO of Vulcan Forge, a gaming platform, and built WordQuest for iPad and the web.
Away from the screen, Jamie is a keen open-water swimmer and adventurer — he's swum the English Channel and has a soft spot for extreme sports.
The words are waiting to be won back.
WordQuest is in its final stage of polish and testing. Play the preview right now in your browser, visit us at the conference for a hands-on demo — and be first in line when the quest begins.