What is Your

Expression Potential?

Incorporating the proven methods of a linguistics professor, My Word Coach was designed to assess, monitor, and reward your Expression Potential, a score that represents your ability to command and use the English language. Scored on a scale from 1% to 100%, the higher your number, the better you are at expressing yourself!

How does it work?

To learn a new word, you must be exposed to it repeatedly in a variety of different contexts and situations.

Exposure to a word in real life depends on its usage frequency. The more a word is used in real life, the more you have the opportunity to be exposed to it and learn its meaning.

Because they have many chances for repeated exposure to new words, kids 14 and younger learn a great number of new words every year (about 1,000 word families every year). When your vocabulary reaches a reasonable level, however, your exposure to new words depends more on more on the specific contexts in which you encounter them (in college courses or at work, for instance). One unfortunate side effect of a solid vocabulary is that, as it grows over time, the number of non-technical words you can learn each year in your everyday life is dramatically reduced.

Since you're mostly exposed over and over again to words you already know, and only rarely to less common words, a variety of new words can only be learned through an enormous amount of reading, which few people have the time or inclination to undertake.

My Word Coach:

Learning More Quickly than in "Real Life"

The key element that we wanted to reproduce in the game was the manner in which words are learned in real life, but in a much shorter time frame and through media more suited to your busy, digital lifestyle.

One gameplay fundamental is the repeated exposure to words in context. Various mini-games provide fun opportunities for you to explore and interact with new words, all the while incorporating proven learning principles and research. There are three primary game types:

• Detailed, visual word recognition to build awareness (Missing Letter, Block Letters, Pasta Letter)
• Spelling-based games for communication proficiency (Word Popper, Competition)
• Words defined and used within appropriate contexts to provide fundamental meaning (Split Decision, Word Shuffle, Pasta Letter Level 2, Safecracker)

With a methodology based on linguistics research and techniques, My Word Coach is more efficient than "real life" at exposing players to words they desire to master but are unlikely to encounter on a regular basis.

On the game's tracking screen, you will notice a bar marked WORDS YOU HAVE SEEN TODAY. This bar represents your daily word quota.

As you play the training games and practice using new words, the bar will indicate that the number of words you have experienced in My Word Coach has increased.

Once you reach your daily word quota, you will receive an Expression Potential update.

The words you have practiced with and hopefully mastered will be the ones that determine your Expression Potential. As you progress in the game, the words you are required to master will become progressively more difficult.

Where do YOU fit in?

Every day, your word quota provides an opportunity to play new training games, review new words, and receive an Expression Potential update.

By simply playing the game, you will be able to reach an Expression Potential of 100% before you know it! Use the Progress Review screen to chart your progress to the goal of complete mastery.

Encourage your friends and family to play along and see how everyone's Expression Potential stacks up!