Sure Bet - call it before you spell it. Think you have definitely got this one? Tap Sure Bet and a first-try correct answer pays double. Get it wrong and you simply do not get the bonus - you never lose points for trying. At the end of the round you find out how well you called it. It is off unless you tap it, so you can ignore it completely. (Spelling for now.) Levels are graded on how hard a word is to SPELL, not how long it is. "weird", "caught" and "piece" were in Level 1 while "watermelon" and "basketball" were up in Levels 6-8. A long word made of words you already know is easy; a short word that breaks its own rule is not. Your stars, streak and unlocked levels are unaffected. 42 classic tricky words added - debt, rhythm, receive, Wednesday, queue, yacht, conscience, sword, knee and more. They were missing because the old word list picked words by how common they are, and these are not common. They are just the ones everyone gets wrong. Every word meaning has been rewritten for kids. The definitions came from a 1913-era dictionary and read like it. All of them are now one plain sentence a 10-year-old can read - and some were not just hard, they were the wrong word entirely. 786 example sentences rewritten, and 20 words that had no real sentence now have one. The Syllables hint works. Tap it on a long word and it breaks into chunks. It had never once appeared before, because no word had a breakdown stored. 3,100 do now. Homophones now tell you which word is meant. Hearing "higher" could just as easily be "hire", and 24 such words showed no cue at all. Fixed: sometimes the word just was not spoken. If a clip took a moment to load it was dropped and never retried. Replaying a stage now shuffles the order - the same ten words, never the same sequence. Finishing a level pays a real bonus. Clearing the last stage of a level used to pay exactly what stage 1 paid. The celebration got out of the way. Every correct answer used to hold for 1.3 seconds; now it is a quick beat, with the full burst saved for every fifth in a row. Reduced Motion gets the shortest hold of all. Miss a day, keep your streak. One skipped day no longer breaks a run. Two in a row still does. The level trail shows every stage number, not just unlocked ones, and now shows your rank and XP. Quill Typing doubles: two new levels covering the number row and symbols, taking it from 40 stages to 60. Plus Speed Run, a 60-second race that stops you at the end of the line you are on, never mid-word - with three new speed badges and a lightning mark on stages you clear quickly. Carry your progress between devices with a sync code. No account, no login, no email - the only thing that syncs is game progress. The parent dashboard now shows every subject, not just spelling. Grown-up checks are stronger: removing a player now asks first, and passing the check expires after a while instead of lasting until the app closes. "Reset all progress" now really resets, and disconnects syncing too.

Better example sentences. We reviewed every sentence the app reads aloud and rewrote the ones that weren't right for kids - clearer, friendlier, and about things children actually recognise. Small text is easier to read in every theme. Faint labels (level stage counts, "RANK", the stage name in a round) were too low-contrast at their size; they're clearer everywhere now. In Parchment & Ink the "START HERE" badge and the XP bar got easier to see too. Grown-ups only. The parent dashboard and "Reset all progress" now ask a quick question only a grown-up will bother answering, so a curious kid can't wander in or wipe a sibling's progress. Skip the opening animation. Tap anywhere to jump straight into the quest. A smaller download. The app is about 3.5 MB lighter. iPad now rotates. Landscape gets a proper two-column layout - your progress and streak on the left, levels on the right - instead of a stretched phone screen. iPhone stays portrait. Players are asked for a nickname instead of a name.

• Easier to play on smaller phones — the word you're spelling, with its "hear it again" and hint buttons, now stays above the keyboard, and when you miss, the correct spelling shows front-and-center. Nothing to scroll for. As always: no ads, no tracking, no accounts.

• Much smaller download — the core game (your voice, every word, both subjects) is built in and plays offline. Extra voices and the recorded example sentences now download automatically in the background when you're on Wi-Fi, then live on your device. • Clearer finish line — clear every stage in a level and it celebrates "Level complete!" with a button pointing you straight to the next level. • Tidier Settings — everything about players (switch, edit, age, add/remove) now lives in one place. • A livelier buddy picker — the spelling buddies are much bigger now; tap one and it grows and springs to life. As always: no ads, no tracking, no accounts.