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.
Who we are
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.
Phatiks was founded by an English teacher — and a confirmed EdTech sceptic — after twenty years of watching what screens do to young readers. We build games where the only way to win is to read closely.
The idea
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.
Scrolling teaches the eye to pass over words without responding to their specific contexts: the words are clocked but the implications are missed.
Wide reading builds comprehension speed and depth, but recognising the implications of words and phrases can also be trained specifically.
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.
How the games fit together
You don't need any of this to play — every game explains itself, and the coloured chips on each one show the skills it trains. But behind the fun there's a system, and it grows as a system.
The working parts of language, what they're called and what they do. Quick, streak-driven games that make the building blocks stick: grammar, morphology, recognition, vocabulary.
Vertical reading: from the surface of a text down through its possible deeper meanings. Evidence, inference, and the rewards of re-reading.
Horizontal reading: comparing texts and their possible authors. Stylistic fingerprints, register, bias — detective work with words as the clues.
Some of our newest games train the emotional side of reading: noticing how a text moves you, moment by moment, and treating that response as something worth studying too.
Most games train more than one skill at once — Emotional Rollercoaster, for instance, is toolkit vocabulary and emotional depth — which is why we label games by skills rather than boxes. The theory behind the system is set out in our mission & positioning paper.
Making screen-time meaningful
Phatiks games are built to be played wherever reading and learning takes place, whether that's at home or school or on the move.
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.
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.
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.
Read more about the research here