Instead of asking children to memorize a letter and its sound as two separate pieces of information, Fonexa embeds a familiar picture directly into the letter’s shape—creating a meaningful visual cue to help children remember the sound.
Studies have found that when pictures are integrated into the shape of a letter, children can learn and remember letter-sound connections more effectively than when pictures and letters are presented separately.
(1984). Pictorial Mnemonics for Phonics. Journal of Educational Psychology, 76(5), 880–893.
Children taught with pictures integrated into the shapes of letters learned more letter–sound associations than children taught with separate pictures or no pictures.
View study ↗(1997). Effects of Integrated Picture Mnemonics on the Letter Recognition and Letter-Sound Acquisition of Transitional First-Grade Students with Special Needs. Learning Disability Quarterly, 20(1), 33–42.
Integrated picture mnemonics increased letter-sound acquisition and letter recognition, with gains maintained at two- and four-week follow-ups.
View study ↗(2007). Integrated Pictorial Mnemonics and Stimulus Fading: Teaching Kindergartners Letter Sounds. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 77(3), 519–539.
A study of 39 kindergarteners found that children learned letter sounds more successfully when meaningful pictures were built directly into the letters and gradually removed as the children became more familiar with the sounds.
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Fonexa pairs sounds with simple movements, giving children another way to connect with and remember what they’re learning. By seeing, saying, and moving at the same time, learning becomes a multisensory experience.
Research suggests that pairing learning with meaningful gestures and movement can strengthen memory and recall. When children physically interact with what they’re learning, they create additional connections that can make new information easier to remember.
(2008). The Effect of Gestures on Second Language Memorisation by Young Children. Gesture, 8(2), 219-235.
Young children who reproduced gestures while learning new words showed stronger recall of the vocabulary. The researchers concluded that performing gestures adds a motor component to learning that can create a richer memory trace. The study included 20 children with a mean age of 5 years, 5 months.
View study ↗(2008). Gesturing Makes Learning Last. Cognition, 106(2), 1047-1058.
Children who were required to gesture while learning a new mathematical concept were more likely to retain what they had learned. The researchers found that gesture played a causal role in helping make the newly learned knowledge last.
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Before children can read words, they need to hear the sounds inside them. Fonexa builds phonological awareness through activities that help children listen for, identify, blend, and play with sounds—building an important foundation for learning to read.
Research has consistently linked phonological and phonemic awareness with learning to read. Explicit instruction that teaches children to notice and manipulate the sounds in spoken words can improve phonemic awareness and support later reading and spelling development.
(2001). Phonemic Awareness Instruction Helps Children Learn to Read: Evidence From the National Reading Panel’s Meta-Analysis. Reading Research Quarterly, 36(3), 250-287.
A meta-analysis of 52 studies found that teaching children to identify and manipulate individual sounds in spoken words significantly improved phonemic awareness and also supported reading and spelling development.
View study ↗(1999). Phonological Awareness and Early Reading: A Meta-Analysis of Experimental Training Studies. Journal of Educational Psychology, 91(3), 403-414.
Across experimental training studies, phonological-awareness instruction improved phonological skills and supported early reading development. Training that combined phonological awareness with letters was more effective than phonological training alone, showing the value of connecting spoken sounds with print.
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Fonexa turns early literacy practice into playful, hands-on activities with a clear learning goal. Instead of only asking children to memorize or repeat information, activities like Zap the Card give them opportunities to practice letter sounds and other early reading skills through active play.
Research suggests that play can be an effective setting for learning when activities are intentionally designed around a learning goal. Studies with preschool children have found that adult-supported play can support vocabulary development, while literacy-focused games have also produced gains in skills such as letter-sound awareness, alliteration, phonics, and vocabulary.
(2018). The Language of Play: Developing Preschool Vocabulary Through Play Following Shared Book-Reading. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 45, 1-17.
Preschoolers learned new vocabulary through book reading followed by play. In the first experiment, children receiving adult-supported guided or directed play made greater vocabulary gains than children given free play with the same toys. A second study also found greater expressive vocabulary gains for words reviewed through play than for words reviewed with picture cards.
View study ↗(2018). Learning Through Play: The Impact of Web-Based Games on Early Literacy Development. Computers in Human Behavior, 81, 378-389.
In a randomized study of 136 preschool and kindergarten children, children who played literacy-focused games for eight weeks outperformed the control group on 8 of 12 early-literacy measures. Improvements included lowercase-letter identification, letter-sound awareness and fluency, alliteration, phonics, and vocabulary, with especially pronounced learning in alliteration and phonics.
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Fonexa introduces children to lowercase letters and their sounds first because lowercase letters are the forms they will encounter most often when they begin reading words, sentences, and books. Once children become familiar with these letter forms and their sounds, we help them connect each lowercase letter to its uppercase match.
Letters are abstract symbols. When children first begin learning the alphabet, they must learn that an unfamiliar visual form represents a particular letter and connects to a spoken sound. Uppercase and lowercase versions can also look very different—like A/a, G/g, or R/r—even though they represent the same letter.
Because lowercase letters are the forms children encounter most often in written words, Fonexa simplifies this early learning process by introducing one form first: lowercase. Once children are familiar with lowercase letters and their sounds, uppercase letters are introduced and connected to the letter knowledge they have already built.
This approach reduces the number of new visual forms children are asked to learn at one time while still working toward the ultimate goal: recognizing both uppercase and lowercase letters and understanding that they represent the same letters and sounds.
(2026). Alphabet Learning and the Uppercase Facilitation Effect. Annals of Dyslexia.
Children successfully learned lowercase letters through explicit instruction whether or not they already knew the corresponding uppercase forms. The researchers concluded that lowercase instruction should be introduced early and systematically rather than delayed until children master uppercase letters.
View study ↗(2020). Case- and form-sensitive letter frequencies in children’s picture books. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 53, 370-378.
Lowercase letters are the forms children encounter most often in books. Researchers analyzing children’s picture books found that lowercase letters appeared nearly 18 times as often as uppercase letters, highlighting the importance of helping beginning readers become familiar with lowercase print.
View study ↗(2010). Theoretical Explanations for Preschoolers’ Lowercase Alphabet Knowledge. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 53(6), 1757-1768.
Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research
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