This is a range of word games to help pupils develop the skills associated with reading. It consists of three separate programs that have been combined into one. These are:
Word Shape
Mix
Shannon's Game
In addition there is a scoring facility to add a little arcade interest rather than plain old drill and practice.
Starting off:
Load up the program by double clicking on !system then !HelixSys and finally !wordgames (This sounds like a lot of clicking but is only necessary to make sure that the system is from this disc and that the Helix basic public domain module is loaded before using any of the helix basic programs. At this point you will need to wait as the program loads up and places its symbol on the icon bar. From here click on the wordgames icon to use the program.
You are greeted with a title screen and if may click on the game you want to use (either Mix for Word mix, Shape for Word shape or Spell for Shanon's game).
How to load another set of words:
If you want to use a word file of your choice (as an automatic start the "names" file is loaded)then you can either
type in the name of the file on the menu reached by pressing the middle button over the title screen
or (a rather easier option!)
select the "Word choices" option from the icon menu (click the middle button over the wordgames icon on the icon bar) and then drag the file of your choice onto the wordgames icon.
The Games included:
Word Shape:
This is a game where pupils need to guess the word being displayed by their shape. The screen shows all the possible words as well as the shape of the word currently selected (the computer chooses this from the word file currently selected, at random). Entry of the word is by simply clicking on the letters in the letter window. Incorrect letters are ignored but the score is related to the time taken for each letter of the word so more mistakes means a lower score!
Word Mix:
Here the word is displayed as a selection of letters. Entry is by clicking on letters in the letter window. As the word chosen has its letters mixed up before display this means that very short words have a higher chance of being displayed as they should be spelt anyway. In this case the word would need to be copied.
Shannon's Game:
A game to improve spelling by reinforcing the rules of spelling (in any language!). Its a type of hangman game but the letters must be guessed in order. The screen will show the file name (a descriptive name is a bonus for children here) as well as the length of the word currently being deciphered. Letter entry is from the letter window but after each word correctly guessed the pupil is shown their current score and rank position.
You can choose either a Full word list (ie the whole file beyond the first 18 words) or "Some words" (being the first 18 words of a length less than 12 letters. If your file is less than 18 words long the difference between the options is even more marked as the "All words" option will choose these words at random 20 times allowing lots of practice at the same words
Scoring:
The scoring system is based upon the time taken to decode each letter for each game. Scores can only be entered once all the words in the file have been used. For pupils it is appropriate to keep the length of the word file down to about ten words although most of the examples have 14.
High scores are given to the player whose name has been entered in the main menu from the wordgames main icon. Add your name before you start!
I strongly recommend that pupils have a good familiarity with the words from the first two options before they try this one! There is also an option to "Add score" half way through a game of Shannon BUT this then puts your score back to zero and is only of use if you are finishing!
Making your own word files:
Word files are simply !Edit files (or pure ASCII files) of words with no spaces at their end.The end of the file must have a carriage return (Return or Enter) after the last word in the file. Files can be as long as you wish but for the Word Shape and Anagram sections only the first 15 words of less than 12 characters will be loaded.
These files should be saved in the word choice directory. This can be opened by selecting the "Word choice" from the main menu of the wordgame icon.
The High Score table:
This can be selected from the main icon menu. High scores are automatically entered and are ascribed to the name currently given in the main menu. High scores can be saved and loaded if pupils wish to continue the table from day to day. It seems to be really easy to get to the top slot of the forty table but each successive turn will require more effort.
Flipping between games:
As the menu within the main screen both shows you which game is currently selected and allows you to select one of the other two, it is possible to change games in the middle of one or the other. In this instance the score is reset to zero and the words are restarted. No high score is given from the previous game.
And finally:
I'm not sure whether Helix basic suffers every now and then with its interface to RISC OS and gets an abort on data transfer message. Certainly if you try and zoom through the options an error can sometimes occur.Its either a limitation of my programming ( a probable cause) or the interface. Either way its a rare occurrence but it has been seen.
If you make a terrific application suitable for distribution as an example on the disc, let me have a copy and I'll send you an update of the program!
Dave Walsh
Advisory Teacher for IT
Clover House
East Kent Education Office
John Wilson Business Park
Thanet Way
Whitstable
This program is public domain. It was written to support schools in the East Kent Archimedes User group but the copyright to the program/code and views outlined in the documentation are mine. The documentation and program should not be separated off the disc before distribution. The program is "as is" and, although I would be interested to hear of ideas for future update and current bugs there can be no commitment of support of the product.
