WordQuest is an app for learning English spelling while enjoying an adventure game. It is designed for beginner learners, children with spelling difficulties, and learners of English as a foreign language — and can be used by any child (or adult!) who would benefit from a structured, fun spelling journey.
WordQuest and The Book of Letters were originally two spelling-adventure gamebooks published by Learning Development Aids in the 1980s. They were bestsellers at the time but are now out of print. The two books have been combined, extensively revised, and adapted into a digital adventure game for iPad and online use. The app keeps the original "choose your path" structure, where the player meets creatures, characters and challenges that can only be overcome by completing spelling tasks.
The app is suitable for:
The adventurer follows the story as it unfolds. The reading level and sentence length begin simply and gradually become more challenging. To support weaker readers — and to make the game more engaging — all text is also read aloud.
The player travels through forests, mountains, ships, islands, caves and magical landscapes, all supported by graphics and sound effects. They might visit the Island of Words, choose a safe path across the Syllable Swamp, dodge the mad Consonant Dogs, explore an underground cavern, or meet the Evil Wizard.
After each part of the story, the adventurer completes a spelling task. These tasks require no writing. Instead they involve choosing, sorting, matching, listening, recognising patterns and applying spelling rules. If a task isn't completed correctly, the player gets hints and can try again. Once it's solved, the story moves on.
"What might have happened…" — there's an option to see what would have happened had the player failed. These alternative endings are fun, dramatic, and sometimes slightly gruesome in a comic adventure style. Children (and often adults!) enjoy discovering them even after solving the task correctly. The player always returns safely to the main story, and the app automatically guides them to the correct next section.
The storyline is divided into four main parts, each gradually more challenging, with spelling quests carefully matched to the stage of the story:
As the adventurer progresses, they collect "equipment" — guides, scrolls, books, tickets, maps, spells and magical objects — that introduce or reinforce spelling rules. The activities are cumulative, building through a structured teaching order so the player revisits earlier concepts while meeting new ones.
The spelling tasks are based on over 40 years of work with dyslexia, including 27 years as Principal of a specialist school. The app version has been widened so it also suits beginner spellers, English language learners, and any child who simply wants an enjoyable spelling adventure.
WordQuest uses both synthetic phonics and analytic phonics.
Isolating individual sounds (phonemes) and blending them to form words — for example c – ă – t becomes cat. It also means teaching a sound and the different ways it can be spelled. The long ā sound, for instance, can be spelled many ways: rain, play, ate, eight, rein, great — no wonder learners find English spelling tricky!
Analysing words by looking at patterns, similarities and larger units. Words can be broken into onset and rime (fr-og), syllables (mag-net), or individual phonemes (m – ă – g – n – ĕ – t). It also includes learning through analogy and word families — e.g. would, should, could — where the learner notices the shared pattern.
Simple aspects of both approaches are built in, but the adventurer experiences them as story-based challenges rather than formal lessons. The app also uses spelling rules, listening for word and letter choices, pattern recognition and visual memory. Teachers may choose to teach a relevant rule separately before the child meets it in the adventure.
The following areas are covered in approximate teaching order. Teachers may wish to introduce these before using each relevant part of WordQuest, then use the app as reinforcement — all through fun quests rather than isolated worksheets.
These items appear in the story and give a clear idea of what's being introduced or reinforced. Some appear more than once, to revisit earlier rules for practice.
| Item | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Book of Consonants | Shows all the consonants in the alphabet, as well as common consonant digraphs. |
| Consonant Blend Ticket | Needed to board a steam train in the story. |
| Capital Letter Kit | Explains that capital letters are used at the beginning of sentences and for names. |
| Gold Coin | Used to buy a map from an old man in the story. |
| Word Starts & Endings Guide | Shows how words can begin and end with consonant blends. |
| Magic e Scroll | Explains that in many words with one vowel followed by a consonant and silent e, the vowel says its name — such as mat → mate. |
| Magic e Oil | Needed to open a treasure chest. |
| Map of the Island | Bought by the adventurer to reach the Island of Words. |
| Storm Spelling Rule Scroll | Teaches the "flossy" rule: after a short vowel, the sounds l, f, s and sometimes z are often doubled — as in hill, cliff, miss and buzz. |
| Rock Pool Consonant Blends | Introduces blends and digraphs such as sp and sh through objects like a ship and a spade. |
| Magic W Spells | Shows how w can affect the sound of the following vowel or letter pattern — such as was, warm and work. |
| Soft & Hard C Quest | Introduces words such as cut and cell, showing how c can make different sounds. |
| Syllable Guide | Explains syllables using simple physical strategies — e.g. a hand under the chin while saying words: mag-net has two syllables, frog has one. |
| Sword Sheath | Gives further help with dividing words into syllables. |
| Vowel Sound Chart | Shows common vowel digraph spellings in the middle and at the end of words — such as ai/ay, ee/ea, oa/ow, igh/ie/y, and ew. |
| Suffix Rule Sword | Explains suffix rules, including doubling the final consonant after one vowel and one consonant (big → biggest) and dropping silent e (ride → riding). |
| Ending Chant | Helps distinguish endings such as -tion and -ssion — for example station and mission. |
| J & G Quest | Introduces common spellings for the j sound — j before a, o, u (jam, jog, jug) and g before e and i (gem, giant). |
| Book of Plurals | Explains plural rules: adding s; adding es after x, s, z, ch, sh; changing y to i; and changing f to v in some words (knife → knives). |
| Wise One Guide | Needed in the story to guide the adventurer through the Crystal Cave. |
| Magic Goggles | Needed to get through the cave. |
| Homophone Scroll | Explains words that sound the same but have different meanings and spellings — such as their, there and they're. |
| Prefix Arrows | Introduces common prefixes such as un, re, pre and dis. |
| Wall Blend Spell | Reinforces consonant blends through a story-based spelling challenge. |
Teachers and tutors can use WordQuest as:
The app is not intended to replace direct teaching where that is needed. Instead, it provides a structured, enjoyable and highly motivating way to practise and reinforce spelling skills through adventure, choice, repetition and play.