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Kai and Suki leap for glowing petals by the World Flower while Sensei Maple cheers and Baron Muddle glowers from a storm cloud

Super Ninja

A phonics adventure for children aged 3 to 8

Baron Muddle has torn every petal off the World Flower, and every petal is a sound. Only a Super Ninja can win them back, one sound at a time.

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  • Proper British sounds
  • The Sounds~Write order, like school
  • Phones, tablets, computers
Baron Muddle flaps his fan under the moon, tearing the glowing petals off the World Flower

Chapter one

The Island of Sounds

At the heart of the Island of Sounds grows the World Flower, and everything on the island lives on its light. Every petal is a sound. With sounds, the islanders made words, and with words, stories.

Then came Baron Muddle. “Words, words, WORDS! How I HATE them!” One sweep of his fan tore off every petal and scattered them across the island. The World Flower went dark.

Now nobody can read. The island needs a hero. It needs your child.

Heroes, helpers & a villain

Meet the cast

KaiSuki
Kai & SukiPick your ninja. Brave, bouncy and armed with letter tiles.
Sensei Maple
Sensei MapleA 300-year-old red panda who says every sound and every word. Stuck? Tap Sensei.
Baron Muddle
Baron MuddleHates noise. Loves muddle. Secretly rather lonely.
A yeti Muddling
18 MuddlingsGloops, crabs, yetis, a river dragon and one very grumpy sumo panda.

6 lands · 74 levels · 412 words

Every move is a reading move

No bolted-on quiz. Hearing sounds, blending, spelling and reading are the controls.

Spell Battles

A Muddling blocks the path. Sensei says a word; tap its sounds in order and every right one throws a shuriken. Kaboom.

For grown-ups: dictation: hearing a word and building it sound by sound, with the spelling for each sound.

Ninja Run

Leap the crates, grab the petals and listen: “c… a… t”. Catch the lantern that says cat before it floats away.

For grown-ups: blending separate sounds into a written word.

The Dojo

New sounds, sound-first: hear it, say it, then see how it’s written. Then build real words, tile by tile.

For grown-ups: new sound–spelling links, in the order children meet them at school.

Sound Swap

The Baron has muddled the words! Change one sound at a time: tin → tan → pan → pat.

For grown-ups: phoneme manipulation, a strong predictor of reading success.

Stories you read together

Sensei reads the exciting bits and your child reads the rest, using only sounds they’ve learned. 6 stories to unlock.

For grown-ups: fully decodable text, with sound buttons under each spelling.

Boss Battles

Every land ends with a big one: a sumo panda, a one-horned oni, a roaring yeti, a river dragon… and a Baron who won’t give up.

For grown-ups: a longer battle over everything the land taught.

Pre-school to Year 2

From first sounds to multiplication

I’m building Super Ninja for my kids, and their school teaches Sounds~Write. So the game follows the same order, one map per stage: a garden for pre-schoolers, the Island of Sounds for Reception, the Sky Isles for Year 1 and the Muddle Isles for Year 2. The Garden and the Island are playable today. The Sky Isles and the Muddle Isles are being built now, one land at a time, and this page says exactly what’s ready.

  1. Pre-school

    Sensei’s Garden

    Playable

    Listening games and picture reading. For now they’re the first six stones of the adventure.

    For grown-ups: listening, before any letters.

  2. Reception

    The Island of Sounds

    Playable

    Five lands, from mat and sat to ship, chop and quick, each with a boss at the end.

    For grown-ups: Sounds~Write’s Initial Code.

  3. Year 1

    The Sky Isles

    Being built

    The Sky Temple’s first half is playable today, with the first long-vowel spellings: ai ay ee ea oa ow igh ie Its second half and five more lands are being built.

    For grown-ups: the Extended Code, units 1–26, and long words.

  4. Year 2

    The Muddle Isles

    Being built

    Baron Muddle’s own islands. Designed, and built after the Sky Isles, one land at a time.

    For grown-ups: the Extended Code, units 27–49, longer words and -tion.

  5. Year 2 stretch

    The Library of Long Words

    Being built

    Designed. It opens after the Muddle Isles.

    For grown-ups: the long words Year 3 meets at school: magician, division, multiplication.

The sumo panda, Bamboo Village’s boss

How the boss battles work

Is the panda the boss of lame sounds? It’s the boss of the first eight sounds (a, i, m, s, t, n, o, p), which is the hardest thing a four-year-old has ever done with letters.

Today every land ends with a boss like it: a longer spelling battle over seven to nine of the land’s words. The panda’s are words like mat and pin, the River Serpent’s are words like frog and stamp, and the Baron’s are the Sky Temple’s rain, feet and boat. That’s good practice, but it doesn’t yet check anything a normal battle doesn’t.

So the later bosses are being rebuilt as each land’s progress check, like the ones school gives every six to eight weeks: reading, spelling and, from Year 1, a long word and a sentence. They’ll arrive land by land, and the road above will say when.

Sensei Maple gazes up at the World Flower as its jewel-coloured petals, set with gems, fly home

The big goal

Regrow the World Flower

English has 44 sounds, and most can be spelt more than one way. The sound in rain can be spelt ai, ay, a (as in cake), ea (as in great), eigh (as in eight)…

So every sound is a petal, and every spelling is a gem inside it.

  1. 1
    Charge it. Use a spelling correctly, in any game, and its gem fills with ninja energy.
  2. 2
    Prove it. A full gem glows. Win it in a Gem Trial. The timer only appears once a child is ready.
  3. 3
    Bloom it. Win its gems and the petal flies back onto the World Flower. Every petal that comes home is a sound of English, in every way your child has learned to spell it.
One teardrop petal per sound, just like the chart from school.
A Gem Trial: spell it to win it.
Sensei Maple reads a picture book with Kai and Suki at the foot of the World Flower

Built for children who can’t read yet

No reading needed to play

  • Sensei is always there. Tap her once and she says what to do. Again for a clue. Again and she shows the way.
  • Ninja Training first. Two minutes teach every control before the adventure starts.
  • Starts at the right level. A quick “Show Sensei” game finds what your child already knows.
  • Kind by design. No timers until they’re earned. Mistakes get a gentle, specific correction, never a buzzer.

For parents & teachers

Serious phonics, dressed as a ninja

How it teaches

  • Sounds first. Letters are taught as ways of writing sounds: linguistic phonics.
  • Pure British sounds. Southern British English, “mmm” not “muh”, every recording checked by an automated listener.
  • Both directions. Reading and spelling are tracked separately for each spelling.
  • The school order. Initial Code, then Extended Code, in the order Sounds~Write schools use.
  • No mnemonics. No letter mascots, songs or actions. Just sounds and spellings.
  • Spaced review. Spellings your child finds hard come back in “Sensei’s Challenge” until they stick.
  • Short sessions. After about 18 minutes, Sensei suggests reading a real book together.

Made for Sounds~Write schools

Many UK primary schools teach reading with Sounds~Write. Super Ninja was built to sit alongside it at home: same sounds, same order, same language (“say the sounds, read the word”). A grown-ups area shows exactly which spellings your child can read and spell.

Super Ninja is an independent project. It is not made, endorsed or approved by Sounds-Write Ltd. Sounds~Write is their registered trade mark.

Private by design

No analytics or tracking. Each child's progress is saved only on your device.

Make it an app in 10 seconds

For full-screen play with no browser bars:

  1. 1
    Open this page in Safari (iPhone, iPad) or Chrome (Android).
  2. 2
    Tap Share then Add to Home Screen. On Android: ⋮ then Install app.
  3. 3
    Open Super Ninja from your home screen and hold the phone sideways.

Questions

What age is it for?

3 to 8. Today it’s playable from pre-school through Reception and into the start of Year 1 (the long vowel spellings like rain and boat). Year 1 and Year 2 are being built now, one land at a time; the road above shows what’s ready.

My child is in Year 2. Is there enough for them?

Not yet. Today a Year 2 child would mostly be revising. The Muddle Isles (Year 2) are being built after the Sky Isles; the road above shows where we are.

Does my child need to read already?

No. Everything is spoken aloud, and Ninja Training teaches the controls before the adventure begins.

What devices does it work on?

Any recent phone, tablet or computer with a modern browser. It’s designed for phones held sideways, and a keyboard works too: type the letters.

Our school doesn’t use Sounds~Write. Is it still useful?

Yes. English has the same sounds and spellings whatever the programme. The order and language follow Sounds~Write, so other schemes may teach some sounds in a different order, or describe some spellings differently. You can unlock every level from the grown-ups area (hold the gear button).

Does it work offline?

Once you’ve played a level, its pictures and sounds are saved on your device, so it keeps working on car journeys.

Kai, Suki and Sensei Maple cheer as the World Flower blooms again at sunrise

The sounds won’t rescue themselves.

Play Super Ninja

Any phone, tablet or computer