As I've previously written, I joined Literacy Volunteers of America to help adults learn to read when I was an undergraduate at Rutgers University. See Spelling Runners Literacy: Driving A Game App.

Sadly, not much in the USA literacy universe has changed since my university days. In Boston, Dr. Jim O'Connell stated in a March 2, 2023 NBC News video profile that 25% of the homeless men he treats on the streets of Beantown can't read or write.

My home base of operation is the Greater Philadelphia, PA region. Achieve Now, a City of Brotherly Love organization is committed to "helping Philadelphia families battle systemic inequities. They see literacy as a social justice issue."

According to Achieve Now,

"22 percent of Philadelphians aged 16 and older lack the most basic literacy skills. 52% of Philadelphia's adults are functionally illiterate, and 67% are low-literate, reading at a sixth- to eighth-grade level. Almost 40% of adult Philadelphians struggle to fill out a job application, to read doctors’ instructions on their medicines, and to help with their children’s homework."

Statistics don't lie. Achieve Now also states that "Philadelphia ranks 92nd out of the 100 largest U.S. cities in educational attainment. 17.4% of adult Philadelphians—an estimated 225,000—do not have a high school diploma, compared to 10.5 percent in Pennsylvania at large."

When I was in the third grade, I was lucky because comic books and books were always in the home. Even though I was a rambunctious kid, my third grade reading level was that of a fifth or sixth grader.

This is why when you take a look at several of our apps, word game or people name games are positioned center stage. I'm not naive enough to think that a software application can cure illiteracy, but working or playing with words can benefit those who want to move forward.

In putting together the Word Sprinters game, another developer on my team helped me pack almost 500 words into the mix. I wanted the words to appear faster than my own app code would allow.

The co-developer did some of the heavy coding changes, and I researched which words would make the final cut. I personally selected three, four, five, six, seven, and eight letter words popping them into the game mix.

You'll see in this short 16 second video how the gameplay gets you physically involved.

Someone you know might gain more confidence by using this app (with a dictionary too) but I doubt that will be needed.

Word Sprinters was formerly called Spelling Runners