Illiteracy costs the world over a trillion dollars every year in poor health, crime, lost earnings, welfare, lost productivity and other societal harms. We know from 2 decades of longitudinal research, over 300 international research publications and parents' reports that our game and methodology achieves basic literacy in every child from 4 to 9 years old, including dyslexic children.
Our innovation is designed to be available offline, on any type of device, so long as audio can be played for the user. The best results have been found in children aged 5 to 8, although we have learned in practice that it is useful for struggling readers of any age and children as young as 4. Players create their own customizable avatar and set off to train their first and most fundamental skills in literacy through phonics (connecting letters and sounds). After mastering letter-sound connections, players move on to blending (combining sounds into syllables) and, finally, to challenging syllables and complicated words. This sequence is known as the synthetic approach to reading instruction.
The methodology was originally gamified in 1992 for the early-identification of dyslexia by Prof. Heikki Lyytinen, UNESCO Chair on Inclusive Literacy Learning for All, and colleagues at University of Jyväskylä and Niilo Mäki Institute in Finland. Since then, 35 language versions were developed.
Grapho Group was founded in 2017, with the intention of bringing this proven literacy solution from Finland’s national curriculum to the global market. Currently we are distributing GraphoGame in 8 languages via the Google Play, Microsoft and Apple App Stores. However, in nationwide licensing deals we have also pre-installed the game on thousands of devices being sent to remote communities. Today, our apps have accrued 2 million downloads worldwide.
Our goal for 2021-22 is to license the game as free-to-download app for every nation on Earth. Over the next decade, we will develop enough language versions to give quality literacy instruction in every child's native language.
If you want to bring this innovation to your nation as a free-to-download literacy resource, please visit: https://www.graphogame.com/licensing.html
To download any of our language versions, please visit: https://www.graphogame.com/download.html
The game is free to download in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Finland, France, Guatemala, Jamaica, Norway, Panama, Peru & Venezuela.
