About Us

I’m Pete and I’m a dad of five-year-old twins. As a developer by trade, I built these games because I wanted a fun way to support what my two were learning at school, so we could practise together at home. I noticed that my girls were always curious about the games I’d play on my phone like Squaredle and Wordle and realised that they wanted versions of their own.

I started with Fredle, which follows the phonics framework from their school to help them find words and sounds that they are learning. My girls soon wanted more, so we now have games for maths, languages, geography and more. With a range of games on different topics, you may also find yourself wanting to play them alongside your little ones (we do!).

About Tick or Fix

Tick or Fix is a gentle, no-ads phonics spelling game for children aged 4 to 7. A picture shows what the word is, but the letters below are broken in some way. Your child works out the word and fixes the letters to earn a star — the word is never spelled out for them, so they have to do the reading themselves.

It grows with them. Early on they just add the one missing letter or take away a letter that doesn’t belong. As they get the hang of it the game steps up to swapping a wrong letter for the right one and finally sliding a stray letter back into place. The wrong letters start out sounding obviously different and, as your child improves, become the classic mix-ups — b/d, m/n, and the short vowels e/i/a/o/u — so they’re really listening to the sounds.

How to play

• Look at the picture and sound out the word it shows.
• Add: drag the missing letter into the empty box.
• Take away: drag the letter that doesn’t belong out of the word.
• Swap: drag the right letter on top of the wrong one.
• Reorder: one letter is out of place — drag it back where it belongs.
• Get it right and the letters turn green — you win a star, and the game nudges a little harder. Find it tricky and it eases back. The picture is always there to help, so there’s always a way in.

Use the settings cog to choose Set 1, 2 or 3 (which words appear). The difficulty is automatic — it grows with your child, and there’s a Start again from the beginning button to reset it all to easy whenever you need to.

Why fixing words helps with phonics

Reading is blending sounds together; spelling is the same skill in reverse. Spotting a wrong letter, choosing the right sound and ordering letters all practise segmenting — a core part of the phonics screening check — in a calm, playful way. There are no timers, no streaks and no flashing rewards: just a word, some letters and a little star when it clicks.

More from Tadpole Games

Tick or Fix is one of a small family of gentle, no-ads, no-login puzzles for curious little minds. Every game shares the same calm, star-not-streak approach:

• Sumdle — a daily maths puzzle: drag two digits and an operator to make the target number.
• Fredle — a daily phonics word puzzle — trace the grid to find Speed Sounds words.
• ABC Gap — spot and fill the missing letter to complete the word.
• Fred Sort — put the pictures in the right order, from getting dressed to making toast.
• Flagle — the picture-led country-flag game in the same gentle progression style.
• Hispanic Flagle — match a flag from one of the 21 Spanish-speaking countries to a landmark, food, person or map.
• Flowerdle — drag each flower across to its leaf and learn common UK plants by sight.
• Leafdle — name the flower from a real photograph.
• Spanish Words — tap the flag to hear a Spanish word, then tap the matching picture.
• Spanishdle — hear a Spanish word from a native voice and tap the photo that matches.