Spike’s Sight Words is more than just a board game; it’s a creative solution born from a mother’s desire to help her son engage with reading. The game’s creator Sophie Bradley, drawing from her background in film and television, noticed how her son, unlike his sister, wasn’t responding to traditional learning methods. This inspired her to develop a play-based approach using toy cars and a racing track to make learning high-frequency words fun and accessible, particularly for children aged 4-6, older struggling readers, and those with dyslexia. I interviewed Sophie to find out more:

1. What was your background before you started the business?

Before I started Spike’s Sight Words, I worked in film and television. My most recent job was at a news channel in Qatar, in the Middle-East. I worked there for 14 years which was an amazing experience. I learned a lot about the world and made some great friends from across the globe. The hours were long however (12 hour shifts including overnights) but it was a wonderful experience to live there and experience a different culture.

2. What was the inspiration for you to start the business?

So during my time in Qatar, I met my husband and we had two children together. I like so many, was thrilled to become a mother. I wanted to give my children a head start in life in regards to their education and learning and so I decided from a young age to try and teach them to read myself. I remember starting off with the alphabet, then the sounds of the letters, then phonics and then we began learning words. My daughter took to my methods brilliantly – I remember inventing a ‘Sight Word Fairy’ where a secret fairy would come and deliver new words every night on some paper for my daughter to learn. She absolutely relished the idea and couldn’t wait to learn the words so that the fairy would return that night! It was wonderful to see and I am proud to say as a result, she was reading basic books at a mere 2 years old. My gorgeous son however did not appreciate nor feel excited about any of this! Often, the words from the ‘Sight Word Fairy’ would end up in the bin before breakfast! I remember seeing my daughter reading book after book and all my son would do is play with his toy cars! Not that I minded this, he was a young boy after all and I’d much rather he play with toys then stare into a tablet or screen! But I saw the joy the books were giving my daughter, her cute little laugh when she read or saw a funny picture in the book and I didn’t want my son to miss out on this. I remember him lining up all his toy cars into speeds and colours on the carpet and it is then that I had a sort of ‘eureka’ moment – what if I could incorporate his toy cars into some sort of learning? I remember quickly going to get some paper and I sketched up a rough racing track with some basic high-frequency words on it. I remember asking my son to come to the table and to BRING his toy cars! He was ecstatic that I had said this and he raced to the table with toy cars for us both. It is then that we rolled a dice and moved his toy cars around the racing track, stopping off to learn a word. I remember just feeling so happy inside – this was the first time my son had ever attempted to learn to read these words! I knew I discovered a few things – that children learn differently and therefore need different methods and resources to do so and that children learn best through play!

3. What is the main educational goal of Spike’s Sight Words board game?

Great question! The main goal is to definitely learn / practise common exception and high-frequency words but in a fun way. A way that is exciting, engaging and will actually encourage the child to actually want to learn. There are of course other educational and social benefits from taking turns, interacting with others, following instructions etc.

4. How many players can participate in a single game of Spike’s Sight Words?

Each pack comes with 3 board games of which you can choose which designs you want. Each board can be played between 1 and 4 players. The idea being that you play with one board (which doesn’t last long) and then you move onto the other boards using the SAME word tokens. Our word tokens are divided up into Beginner words, Intermediate words and Advanced words. Each word token has also been repeated twice. These type of words in English require a lot of repetition to learn them and so by repeating the word token and encouraging players to use the same words but on a different background, hopefully maximizes their chances of learning them.

And what age group is Spike’s Sight Words board game designed for?

So originally I had them developed for parents who wanted to teach their children to read – so perhaps around 3 or 4 years old but then I realised that not many parents do actually take on the challenge of teaching their children to read. So now, they are most popular with children learning to read at around 4-6 years old. They are also very popular for older struggling readers or children who have SEN (especially those with dyslexia) which can range between 5-10 years old. I have also had people use our games on even older students say 11- 14 years old who may be very behind in their reading or who are learning English as a second language. I also had some enquiries about board games for illiterate adults.

5. How did you go about developing the board game?

Well, it wasn’t an easy process but here is what I had to do. I first found myself an illustrator. He was from Sri Lanka and I must say he was brilliant.

I remember on the Insect board he insisted on creating over a 1000 individual looking ants for the board. I did tell him, I don’t think anyone would ever notice that all the ants looked slightly different but he wanted to do it and so he did. All 30 designs took nearly a year to complete and I am proud that they are all original drawings and illustrations and that they are colourful and engaging. I then researched where I  could manufacture the board games and of course China came up. At first, I didn’t really want them made in China but like with so other many products, the cost just made sense. Spike’s board games are unique and special molds had to be made for them which added to the cost. I found a great lady called Sandy in China who talked me through the process. I remember being VERY picky over things and even told her something along the lines of ‘I want these boards to be the highest of quality and I don’t want people thinking they were ever made in China’. She took my words seriously and luckily manufactured a great quality product for me. Before we went into production, I had to pay to get the packs safety tested. I remember this costing around 4000 pounds which was a huge amount of money to pay especially since part of the safety tests included trying to destroy the pack! But of course, I wanted and needed the packs to be safe as it was going to be a children’s product. As soon as we passed the tests, we went into production!

6. Does Spike’s Sight Words incorporate any interactive elements to enhance the learning experience?

All board games are genuinely interactive as you have to set the board up, roll a dice, move your counter etc etc. What we encourage however with our educational board games is for children to use real toy cars or figurines (not included in the packs) to use as their counters! Telling your child or student to go and find a fun toy to play with really captures their imagination! I remember my daughter coming back with a pepper grinder from the kitchen once! She seemed so enthusiastic to play the games with it and I thought, why not!

7. Do you have any plans to develop the game or other products further?

I like this question. The answer is yes – at some point. We would like to commission more designs (I wish I had a flying / aeroplane board) and give children even more of a choice to learn on. We may look into alphabet and phonics tokens one day so that parents or educators can start right at the beginning of the reading journey. We may look at translating the word tokens into foreign languages so that children can use our games to learn their own language or indeed an additional language. We may also branch out into maths tokens or something connected with other subjects. We even had a request to start making ‘emotion’ tokens for students to use. I imagine these will be useful for any child needing emotional / additional support with things. So as you can see, there is a lot of scope for our games but for now we are sticking to what we have and building the brand first. In the future, I would also like to develop some more ‘mature’ designs so that adults can play on them. Perhaps illiterate prisoners would benefit from them or adults learning English as a second language.

8. Have you won or been nominated for any awards since the product launched?

Yes we have! I was absolutely delighted to be nominated for a British Dyslexia Association Award a few years ago. We had only launched a few months before the nomination and being recognised by such an important establishment really helped cement my confidence with my product. It was also a surreal but wonderful feeling to go to the award ceremony in London and see my logo on the big screen in front of educators, celebrities and even Royalty! 

We have also been nominated for numerous other awards – both as an educational product and as a business.

A few months ago we won our first award for ‘Best Educational Support Program’ which was fantastic. The trophy sits proudly on my desk! We were also selected to be a winner of Theo Paphitis’ (previous Dragon’s Den Investor) Small Business Sunday event which was a real honour also. We enjoyed meeting Theo and were delighted he believed in our product also.

I hope 2025 will bring more nominations and wins also!

9. What are the best ways you’ve found to market the product? What plans do you have to market the product internationally?

Hmmm, that’s a good one. Look, I will be honest here. I put all my life savings into this product – it cost me a lot and it was a real risk to do so. I didn’t really leave much money left for marketing at all. But this hasn’t stopped me from promoting the product and indeed selling it. I’ve sold many to schools via direct emails to them, I have sold packs using social media. I have had many international orders also and have recently sent our Spike’s Sight Words 2025 catalogue to countries such as India, Belgium and Kenya. The amazing thing here, is this is a global product – it could be used in schools across the world. It is just a case of getting everyone to know about them. I have a feeling I will be getting my first big international order this year which would be a dream come true!

10. Are there any other people, companies or programmes that are involved in DEI in the UK or abroad that you are a big fan of?

One of the best things about setting up Spike’s and being popular with the SEN community is that I have learned SO much about it all. I’ve learned about dyslexia, dyscalculia, ADHD, autism etc and I am using this knowledge to help educate and let people understand about these disorders. I have a big supportive network on LinkedIn with various people (including yourself Barry) who have helped me understand and support the SEN community. I wouldn’t want to give specific names of companies because I think they all have something good to offer. I would like to say a huge thank you to people like yourself who given me such a great platform to share my story with however. There are others also, too many to mention who gave me support right from the beginning, who gave me the confidence that my product was good and needed. They did podcasts with me (a new experience for me), interviews, supported my posts etc. It is these people who will always have my gratitude and I think I will be friends / connected with them for a jolly long time! Thanks again for such a great opportunity. I hope your readers enjoyed reading about my story and how Spike’s Sight Words came about.

You can find more on our website – http://www.spikessightwords.com