Mussila WordPlay is a new literacy app created by EdTech company Mussila.  During this Q&A we learn about what inspired the founders to create the app, as well as its top features and the evidence and research that underpinned its design.

What was the inspiration for creating Mussila WordPlay?

We already had one app on the market called Mussila Music, that recently won the award for Best International Digital Educational Solution at the BETT Awards in London in March 2022.
Research has shown that language and music are connected through listening, rhythm, and singing. This connection is essential for developing phonological awareness. Therefore, building an educational literacy app for the same age group (4 to 10 years old) seems to be the perfect addition and the right step in the direction of creating an EdTech Platform.
Mussila WordPlay is an adapted and improved version of an Icelandic app called Orðagull that we acquired a few years ago, and that is used by 90% of the schools in Iceland.

Can you describe the evidence-based ideas and research that underpinned the design of this EdTech app?

Mussila WordPlay was developed in collaboration with speech and language therapists.
According to Ásthildur Bj. Snorradóttir and Bjartey Sigurðardóttir, the speech therapists that helped us develop the app:

“Mussila WordPlay is based on evidence-based ideas and clinical expertise in speech and language pathology. The learning paths in the app are based on those ideas and have shown excellent results in learning good language skills. Language is the basis for reading, comprehension, and learning. Research has shown that language and music are connected through listening, rhythm, and learning to sing along, which is an important skill to develop phonological awareness. Phonological awareness is a vital skill to learn how to play with the word’s sound system, which makes the foundation for reading fluency.”

The pedagogical foundation of the Mussila solutions focuses on early intervention, emphasizing teaching children to process auditory instructions. Auditory processing involves comparing auditory stimuli with general knowledge and language awareness. It is also essential to help young children build proper vocabulary, guide them to listen to instructions, recall them during retelling, and work them out in planning and finding solutions. Vocabulary first develops when the child recognizes body parts, family, emotions, and objects in the immediate environment. This learning based on memory and experiences involves the individual’s understanding of the environment. Therefore, the Mussila team develops learning solutions that enhance students’ memory and experiences, by developing teaching materials to strengthen working memory, auditory processing, vocabulary, and retelling.

What are the top features of Mussila WordPlay?

The app has four different paths: Learn, Play, Create, and Practice. They are the same paths as in the successful Mussila Music pedagogical methodology that has been applied also to this new app.

• In Learn, children go through different everyday life scenes and learn vocabulary. They also start improving their listening skills with question challenges, and their reading comprehension completing some tasks according to given instructions.
• In Play, children find many games to put into practice what they’ve learned in the Learn path: Quiz, Sing-along, Spelling, Story Quiz, Word Stacking, Word Soup, Quiz+, Connect and Sentence Builder.
• In Create, children find the Story Creator, where they will choose words to add to a story and create a new and fun story every time. They’ll be surprised at the different combinations they can come up with, and they’ll be eager to share them.
• In Practice, there is a dictionary to review the vocabulary learnt in the Play path, and a library to practice and improve reading. This library includes, among others, the first chapters of the book “There Was a Blue Planet” by Andri Snaer Magnason, winner of the 2014 UKLA Book Award: an eco-fable with heart and humour.

Would your EdTech app be useful for both teachers and parents?

As for Mussila Music, Mussila WordPlay is adapted to both families and schools.
They are great tools to use for both parents and teachers to spark curiosity in children, so they are motivated to learn.
That’s why we have offers for families, but also for schools where teachers can follow the progress of their students.

You can learn more about this educational literacy app by clicking here: https://mussila.com/wordplay/

//This is a sponsored post.

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