Echidna's Sentences
Reading a sentence: put the words in order to match the picture
How it plays
A picture from one of the Little Roos Readers appears, with its sentence's words jumbled underneath. Your child taps the words in order to build the sentence (a word tapped out of turn just says itself and wobbles), then hears the whole sentence read back with each word lighting up. Sentences start three words long and grow to five or six. Every word is one your child can sound out, from the same books.
What it's for
Reading a sentence: put the words in order to match the picture. It adapts as your child plays: after a few rounds that go well it steps up a little, and after a couple of hard ones it quietly steps back. The level number only ever goes up.
There is no score to lose and no way to fail. A wrong move is met with a gentle nudge, and a level ends when it's won.
Away from the screen: Jumbled sentences
About two minutes, with things most homes have.
- Write a short sentence your child knows on a strip of paper: "The frog sat on the log."
- Cut it into words, mix them up, and build it back together.
- Read it together, pointing to each word. Then make a silly one: "The log sat on the frog!"
Three questions to ask while they play
- Which word comes first? How do you know?
- Where does the full stop go?
- Can you change one word to make a new sentence?
Play together
Things to say or ask
- Read it to me. Does it match the picture?
- Which word comes first? A sentence starts with a capital.
- Point to each word as you read it.
Taking turns on one device: Take turns placing a word. Read the sentence together when it's done.
Talk-about cards: a question a day for a week, for the car or the dinner table. Print them, or read them from your phone.
If they find it hard
Point to each word as you read it aloud. It shows your child that each word we say is one word on the page. Or try Blend It, Bandicoot first: blending the sounds of one word at a time, before reading whole sentences.
A sheet to print
Print the Echidna's Sentences sheet
One A4 page, in black and white or colour.
What it practises
- Building a sentence. Putting words in order so they make sense, and reading them back.
AC9EFLA06 (English, Foundation); EYLF 5.4 (Early Years Learning Framework V2.0) - Reading a first book. Reading sentences and little books made only of the sounds learned so far.
AC9EFLY04 (English, Foundation); AC9EFLY12 (English, Foundation); EYLF 5.4 (Early Years Learning Framework V2.0)
The codes are from the Early Years Learning Framework V2.0 (for three- to five-year-olds) and the Australian Curriculum v9 (Foundation to Year 2). Each links to the official wording. Every skill, and the games for it.
What it costs, and what we collect
Nothing, and nothing. There is no account, no advertising and no tracking of any kind. Which games have been played is remembered on your own device and is never sent anywhere. The full version is here, and it's short.
Where it lives
Echidna's Sentences lives in The Quiet Deep — words and spelling. It works on a phone, a tablet or a classroom screen, and once it's been opened it keeps working with no signal at all.