Gamified SAT Words

March 24, 2024 10:28 AM

Tween Proust loves to practice her Spanish with Duolingo. The app's gamification strategies work very well for her, getting her to play for 10-20 minutes per day. Is there a similar app she could use for expanding her English vocabulary?

I don't know the details of how Duolingo works. I know it keeps track of her daily streak (with generous amnesties for missing a day). It seems to rank her against other players in ways that she enjoys and aren't stressful. There appear to be other rewards. Importantly, the app gets satisfied after she plays for 10-15 minutes; it's not trying to keep her plugged in all day.

Is there something similar for intermediate / advanced English vocabulary? Doing it inside Duolingo would be ideal, but I don't think that's possible. We don't mind paying a modest monthly fee to get the right app. We're an Apple ecosystem family.

posted by Winnie the Proust to Education (3 answers total)

I bet she'd like FreeRice.com.
The gimmick is that answering correctly donates rice to hungry people through the UN food bank.

But it's fun, free, and while there isn't a lot of tracking, it gets harder as you get correct answers so it will naturally encourage stopping for the day.
posted by SaltySalticid at 10:41 AM on March 24 [3 favorites]

I bet there's an Anki deck for this
posted by knucklebones at 4:58 PM on March 24

For the record and future searches, I see now that FreeRice was indeed started for SAT training, and that the app versions do have various extra tracking and challenges etc.
posted by SaltySalticid at 5:18 PM on March 25