WordMelodies: An inclusive mobile app supporting the acquisition of literacy skills

We present WordMelodies, a mobile edutainment app designed for inclusive teaching of literacy skills to visually impaired and sighted primary school children. WordMelodies is a cross-platform mobile application, and it can be accessed visually and through screen reader. It is available in Italian and in English, and it includes over 80 different exercises, with diverse interaction modalities and configurable difficulty levels. It is designed to be extendable with new exercises, and localized to additional languages with specific and appropriate linguistic exercises. We describe the design process of WordMelodies, consisting of two iterations, which included formative studies and tests with visually impaired participants and experts in education for children with visual impairments.