Spelling road
Spelling by sounds is the other side of reading: hearing cat and knowing it goes c, a, t. Here the picture appears, the voice says the word and below there is a field of loose letters, the ones in the word and a few extra. Draw the car’s road with your finger from the start to the finish, going through the letters in order. At the finish the car drives along the road and fills in the boxes; if it runs over a wrong letter, start again.
What children practise
- Spelling by sounds (segmenting)
- The order of the sounds in a word
- Letters that get mixed up: b and d, m and n, a and e
- Digraphs: sh, ch, ck, ng, ee, oo
- Planning a route and fine motor skills
Levels and settings
Early years
Three-sound words with the letters in grey in the boxes and no extra letters; on hard, one extra and no hints.
Year 1
Three sounds with one or two extra letters and empty boxes; on hard, four sounds.
Years 2 and 3
Four sounds, digraphs and mixed, with up to three extra letters that look like the right ones.
How to play it in class
- Choose the year and difficulty, or in More options the words, the extra letters, the hints, the voice and the points.
- Press Start: the voice says the word and each team sees the same field in its half.
- Put your finger on the car and draw the road through the letters, in order, to the finish. The arrow button clears the road.
- At the finish the car sets off by itself. If it picks up all the letters in order, that is a point; the first team to do it wins it.
Ways to play
In teams, at the same time
The screen splits in two and each team plays on its own half at the same time.
For one player
One child plays on the whole screen at their own pace: on the whiteboard, a computer or a tablet.
Frequently asked questions
What happens if the road goes over a wrong letter?
The car picks it up, the box turns red and you start again with the same field.
Can the road be drawn in several strokes?
Yes: carry on from where the road stopped. To start again, the arrow button clears it.
Is it free?
You can play 5 free games without signing up. After that, a one-off payment of €9.99 unlocks all 78 games for ever, on all your devices. There is no subscription.
Do I need to install anything?
No. It opens in the browser of the interactive whiteboard, panel, computer, tablet or iPad. Once loaded, it also works offline.
More English games
Torch huntA game of discovery.
Sentence BuilderIt starts from zero: the voice says a word or a sentence in English and children tap the matching picture, with no reading needed.
I am, you arePronouns and the verb to be, learnt the way English schools teach them: with pictures and whole sentences, not conjugation tables.
PhonicsEnglish schools teach reading through sounds, not letter names.Spelling road
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