Hi! Let me show you how the trainer works.
Focus Trainer is a web app where children with dyslexia train attention, attention to detail and working memory. The exercises are short, clear and playful, and the result is visible straight away.
Dyslexia is a specific learning difficulty: reading accurately and fluently and spelling correctly are hard for the child, even though their intelligence and ability to learn are typical. Estimates vary, but dyslexia affects roughly 5–10% of children. It is not laziness or a lack of effort; it is a different way of processing information that needs the right practice and patience.
Many children with dyslexia find it hard to keep their attention on a longer sequence of symbols: they skip or swap letters, mix up similar letters (such as b and d), and their short-term and working memory is often weaker. These are exactly the skills Focus Trainer works on.
The core exercises are based on a model created by specialists who work with children with dyslexia, and tested with children. Their experience shows that simple copying and memory exercises, done regularly, help children read more accurately and attentively.
The timer only shows the time; being slow is never penalised.
Sequences grow gradually, from 6 to 15 characters, so every level is within reach.
Only the wrong rows are marked: the child fixes them and checks again.
Green and red fields, the owl's hints, stars and personal records keep children coming back.
The app has 13 levels in four kinds of exercises. Within each kind, levels go from easier to harder.
The child sees 5–7 sequences of digits or characters and copies each one exactly as shown. Sequences grow from 6 to 12 digits, and in the hardest levels letters are mixed in.
Trains: visual attention, attention to detail and keeping symbols in the right order – the same skill needed to read a word letter by letter.
Sequences are made of the letters b, d, p, q (and the digits 6, 9), which differ only in direction. Almost every beginning reader mixes up b and d now and then, but in children with dyslexia the confusion often lasts longer.
Trains: visual discrimination – telling similar letters apart quickly and accurately.
A sequence is shown for 7, 5 or 4 seconds, then it disappears and the child types it from memory. The shorter it is shown, the more focus it takes.
Trains: short-term memory and concentration.
The child memorises 4 or 5 digits and types them in reverse order, starting from the last one. This is a classic working-memory task, also used in psychological assessments.
Trains: working memory – not only holding information, but rearranging it.
The app needs no accounts and collects no personal data. Progress – stars, best times and number of plays – is stored only on the device where the child plays.
Focus Trainer is not a diagnostic or treatment tool. If you think a child may have dyslexia, talk to the school's special educator or speech therapist, or to your local educational psychology service.
No. Open the app and start the exercises right away.
Only on that device, in the browser. On another device, or after clearing browser data, progress starts from zero.
Children who already know digits and letters, most often primary school pupils. Older children can go straight to the harder levels.
We suggest 10–15 minutes several times a week. Regular practice matters more than long sessions.
No. The exercises complement a specialist's work; they do not replace it.
No. The app runs in the browser on computers, tablets and phones. On a tablet or phone it can be added to the home screen and opened like a regular app.
We made it! Let's try it!
The exercise idea and first model come from specialists who work with children with dyslexia. The app was built by nity.tech.