flashily

What is flashily? Flashily is a mobile app that uses interactive flashcards to support children learning to read through decoding phonics.

How do I use it? For younger children we recommend you sit with your child and focus on one card group at a time. Older children can use it unattended. By clicking on the individual letters (or graphemes) and the speaker they will start to become familiar with decoding phonics and words.

What is a grapheme? There is an excellent Twinkl page explaining what a grapheme is and how decoding is taught in schools. The flashily app supports this method of teaching.

Will it teach my child to read? Not on its own! The most important thing to help your child to read is to read books to them and ask them to read out loud to you. The flashily app helps to reinforce learning and improve your child's ability to read it is not a replacement for reading.

Can I create my own flashcards? Not easily. We recommend you investigate Anki or Quizlet for this purpose. However if you are a bit technical and want to contribute please contact us at developer@flashi.ly to discuss.

Will you add this feature? Yes... but it might take some time. We are a small operation and have a lot on our todo list. We do welcome suggestions and feedback however so please raise a request on one of our support channels.

Why isn't it free? You can download the app for free to try it out but we do charge a small subscription fee to access the full content (although again you can make use of a free trial to see the content available before you pay). As the app is aimed at children primarily it was very important to us that we did not have adverts (anyone who has left their 3 year old unattended with their tablet will have marvelled at the amount of nonsense apps that have mysteriously appeared!) By subscribing you are supporting the development of further content to help children of all ages progress in their education. It is a reasonably small charge compared to other educational apps and we are confident that the app will help improve your child's reading in only a few months. However do stay subscribed if you can as we will be adding new card groups all the time. There are other free apps like Anton which is funded by the EU and covers a lot of school topics. Flashily is focused on reinforcing learning through interactivity in a highly intuitive UI which we believe is good value.

Is it just english phonics? For now we are focusing on increasing the content for phonics and spelling in English but plan to add other languages and topics in the future.

Can you add maths flashcards? We plan to but in the mean time please check out Math Is Fun and Mathopolis which contain a number of interactive tools as well as a comprehensive explanation of school level Maths.

What books do you recommend for learning to read? The single most effective book we have found for helping you child to read is Hop On Pop by Dr Seuss. Other Dr Seuss books are great for children of all reading levels.

Can you recommend any other great learning resources? For more in depth learning you cannot beat expert teachers or good books. There are also some excellent YouTube channels. We recommend you check out Kurzgesagt who make great animation explaining interesting science concepts or Veritasium or 3Blue1Brown for more advanced Science and Maths topics.