PHATIKS

phat·ic adj., Linguistics language used to build and maintain social bonds, keep channels of communication open. Small talk. Social glue. There's a whole world of meaning beneath it.

Screens teach skimming.
Our games train deep reading.

Phatiks builds reading games that help secondary school English students get more out of language and more into reading. We try to stop them skimming and scrolling, so they think more deeply about the words they see, and the possible worlds within them.

Play the games Read our mission

The idea

If we learn to read, we should keep learning to read better

The research tells the same story again and again: we're all reading more and more on digital screens, while understanding and recalling less and less. The reason is not simply the screens, but the habits they encourage, such as scrolling and skimming. Our games aim to retrain young readers in the habits that expert readers need: the thinking and infering and attending to details that take us more deeply into the texts we encounter, and the worlds that deeper reading can open up.

Skimming is trained

Scrolling teaches the eye to pass over words without responding to their specific contexts: the words are clocked but the implications are missed.

Recall relies on practice

Wide reading builds comprehension speed and depth, but recognising the implications of words and phrases can also be trained specifically.

Phatiks makes it fun

In a Phatiks game, precision wins. Whether it's knowing the answer or infering it from evidence, our players need to think. The deeper the read, the higher the score.

The games

Toolkit, Depth, Forensics

Toolkit games are about building foundations: the working parts of language, what they're called and what they do. Depth games are vertical, leading readers from the surface of a text to consider its possible deeper meanings; Forensics games are horizontal, asking players to compare texts and their possible authors.

TEXTERMINATORS (opens in a new tab) Toolkit · grammar

Zap your way through grammatical terminology until the names for word classes stick. Play faster, harder rounds, beat your high scores.

KS3–KS5 MEGAMORPH Toolkit · morphology

Build on root words using falling morphemes: prefixes, suffixes, compounds and blends. See how words are put together.

KS3–KS5 SPEED READER Toolkit · recognition

Sharpen up the speed and accuracy of your reading by spotting what matters on the page. Then work out why or how.

KS3–KS5 INFER-RED Toolkit · vocabulary

Work on your vocab by tackling unfamiliar words: develop skills for infering meaning from features that might be familiar.

KS3–KS5 SUBTEXT Depth · close reading

Explore the depths of a text, layer by layer. What shows more than it tells? Where is your evidence? What can re-reading give you?

KS3–KS5 WHODUNNIT? Forensics · comparison

Expert reading is detective work, words the clues that lead you to meaning. Study the stylistic fingerprints, assemble the evidence, then make the accusation.

KS4–KS5

Select the text. The games come with text to explore, but we always keep the teacher in control: they can paste in the text their class is studying, the game can can draft questions and tasks for the teacher to check and edit before any pupil plays.

PHATIKS LAB

Looking for new ways to play games with language

The Lab is where we experiment with language games, looking for news ways of seeing texts, from everday speech or writing, to more formal fiction and non-fiction, including: classic novels, plays and poems. Lab prototypes change often, and might sometimes grow up into full Phatiks games.

Our poetry prototype: AFFECTONAUT fly through a poem as it unfolds, responding to its darkness or light, its emotional heat or rational cool. See how your reading maps against an expert reader.

Visit the Lab Try flying Blake & Barrett Browning

Making screen-time meaningful

Three ways in

Phatiks game are built to be played wherever reading and learning takes place, whether that's at home or school or on the move.

At home

For parents

If your child reads regularly but struggles to say what a chapter was about, they might not be reading closely enough. Precision can be practiced, though, with short, purposeful game sessions that reward careful attention to detail.

With a tutor

For tutors

In a few simple steps, you can adapt a game using an extract from the text your student is studying. Play it in the session or set it between sessions, and see where the reading is strong and what it misses, without any marking.

In school

For teachers

Whole-class play with the texts you're teaching, from KS3 starters to A Level analysis. Scoring that tracks student decisions and progress, and all the safeguards you need: no pupil input ever reaches an AI.

What we're trying to do

"Our games are all about getting young people reading, then helping them read more closely. Because deep reading demands subtle thinking and real feeling. And that gives us a deeper engagement with the world, and a clearer sense not just of the people around us but, ultimately, ourselves as well."

From our founder, an EdTech sceptic.