#26 Spelling flash cards

[Roger Sperberg]

Other new feature requests I've made are about the
program as is.

This one is about making it do something new.

I would like to use Granule to help my six-year-old,
Jayne, learn her spelling words. She doesn't like to
study but she loves to play with the Nokia 770 we have.

I guess what I'd like to do is enter a word on the back
and show nothing on the front.

When Jayne gets to a new card, in this spelling review
mode, I'd like the word on the back to be pronounced.

After a pause (or until a button is clicked -- having
both options would be wonderful), the word would then
be spelled out letter by letter.

I guess it would be OK to enter the word a second time
when the card is created, with spaces between the letters.

Ideally we would have several options at this point:

• While the word is being spelled aloud, it appears
  on-screen one letter at a time

• After the word has been spelled aloud, the word
  appears on-screen one letter at a time.

I ask for this option too because Jayne has trouble
hearing. Sometimes seeing the letter when it's
pronounced is helpful -- this helps her remember her
letters and how they're pronounced (this is the first
option above).

At other times, that would interfere with her
concentration, when she needs to focus on listening to
the word being spelled out. Then it's better if she
sees the word after hearing it. This lets her
concentrate not on the letters but how the word is spelled.

• After lots of review, it would be easier to go
  through the cards with the whole word appearing on the
  front all together, not letter by letter.

• After lots of review, it would be better just to hear
  the word, then see the whole word.

Because Jayne is young, I will make the letters really
big. It would probably be nice to be able to select
colors for words, and even ultimately to have the
program randomly color (or randomly pick from colors
I've set up to choose from) individual letters as they
appear, or words when they show up all at once.

Colored type is not too big a thing but would make it
friendlier for her.

This use of Granule for learning spelling is pretty
different from your original "learn vocabulary" use. It
obviously requires connection to a TTS engine -- I'm
experimenting with the Flite engine that's in the
process of being ported -- and I'm not sure how Granule
would access Flite.

But wow would it be nice.

Thanks,

Roger Sperberg
rsperberg@gmail.com

[Vladislav Grinchenko]

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user_id=616697

Sorry, but I have to reject this proposal. This goes way off
the main venue of Granule - it would be too much work and it
would wreck havoc on other users' usablity experience.

Perhaph, what you need is to write a dedicated application
for your daughter (or search for one on sourceforge/freshmeat).

-Vlad