Sayeed, left, and Larson display their new app.
Image Credit: Tarik Sayeed
November 07, 2014 - 7:30 AM
OKANAGAN - Local innovators are putting the Okanagan on the map by creating educational apps that will help kids develop reading skills.
Technology expert Tarik Sayeed and veteran educator Brenda Larson have put their knowledge together to create five educational games for kids available on Android tablets.
The games are based on a line of education materials, Itchy’s Alphabet, designed by Larson to introduce children to letters and sounds. The core of the program focused around unique picture cues in the shape of letters, which helps kids develop skills necessary for reading.
Sayeed and his creative programming team at BabyTaxi turned the ideas behind Itchy’s Alphabet into high quality apps that engage and educate kids.
The games currently available are a picture matching game, a memory game, initial sounds game, final sounds game, and vowel sounds game. The first version of the picture matching game is being released for free for people to try out.
“Our primary motive was to teach children and advance their learning curve through creative education games,” says Sayeed. “It was just the natural extension of our vision to first give back to our community.”
Sayeed and Larson plan to adapt the games for use on iPad tablets and SMARTboard, which are commonly used in public school classrooms.
To contact the reporter for this story, email Meaghan Archer at marcher@infotelnews.ca or call 250-488-3065. To contact the editor, email mjones@infotelnews.ca or call 250-718-2724.
—This story was corrected on Nov. 7, 2014 at 10:30 a.m. to fix a spelling mistake.
News from © iNFOnews, 2014