BrainDojo's Mini Games: What Calculation, Reading Aloud and Handwriting Train
Hiroki Obara · Developer
Open All Exercises in BrainDojo and you will see lanes such as Calculation Boost, Memory Boost, Attention Boost and Handwriting Training. With the app in English, the Calculation Boost lane holds seven trainings. In six of them, you write the answer with your finger.
In this post I go through the calculation trainings one at a time: how each one works, and what it mainly asks of you. Later on I also touch on the reading aloud and handwriting trainings. I won’t show any of the problems, only the rules and how you answer. How the daily set is put together is in How BrainDojo Puts Together Today’s Training, so here I stick to the trainings themselves.
The Calculation Boost trainings
Quick Math
This is the basic form. Short arithmetic problems come one after another, and you write each answer on the screen with your finger. When you finish writing, the next problem appears, and at the end you see your time. You can compare it with your previous time, so the race is against your own record.
What it mainly uses is speed at clearing simple calculations. Working out the answer in your head isn’t the whole problem. Writing the digits by hand is part of it.
Speed Calc Long
The same form as Quick Math, but you solve 100 problems straight through, a calculation marathon. Each one is easy, but keeping your pace for all 100 is harder than it sounds. On top of speed, it uses the ability to stay focused for a long stretch. It suits a day when you have a little more time.
Dice Math
A few dice appear, and you add and subtract their numbers. The problem tells you to calculate with the top faces or with the opposite faces. Opposite faces of a die always add up to 7, so when you use the opposite faces, you first turn each number you see into the one on the other side, in your head, and then calculate. As you go, the number of dice increases.
It uses both the speed of reading the dots at a glance and the ability to keep the converted numbers in mind while you carry on calculating. The second is the work of working memory, holding information in mind for a short time while you use it. I wrote about working memory in What Is Working Memory?.
How Much?
Japanese yen coins, from 1 yen to 500 yen, and 1,000-yen bills appear on the screen, and the question is “How much?”. You write the total with your finger. As in Dice Math, the number of coins and bills goes up as you go.
You count each kind of money, keep the running total in mind and add the next kind, so this one also uses working memory. It is the same thing you do when counting change at a till, so it may feel more familiar than plain arithmetic, even if yen are new to you.
Word Math English
The problem is written out in words rather than digits and symbols. The screen says “Read it aloud and calculate”: you read the problem out loud as you work it out, then write the answer in digits.
Read the words, turn them into numbers, calculate, write the digits. In a single problem you read, speak, calculate and write, one after another. It is a calculation training, but it is a reading aloud training too.
Count Cube Math
Two shapes built from stacked cubes appear. You count the cubes in each and write the difference. Because the shapes are three-dimensional rather than flat pictures, you have to build them up in your head as you count.
It uses the ability to read a quantity from a shape, and to keep the first count in mind while you count the second.
Mini Sudoku
A 4×4 sudoku. Fill the grid so that every row, every column and every 2×2 block contains each number once. This is the one training in the lane where you answer by tapping a square and then a number button.
It is less arithmetic than reasoning: you keep several conditions in mind at once and narrow down which number can go where. Research on sudoku itself is in Is Sudoku Good for Your Brain?.
Reading aloud
The training for reading out loud is Speed Read English, in the English Training lane. Sentences appear one at a time. When you have read one aloud, you press the button to move to the next. At the end you see how many words you read per minute, next to your previous record. Word Math English, above, is another training where you use your voice.
How to read aloud and keep it going is covered in detail in Reading Aloud for Adults: How to Do It as Brain Training, so here I only name it.
Handwriting
With the app in English, the Handwriting Training lane holds these trainings:
- Quick Write English: write English letters and words quickly.
- Zen Shodo: trace Zen calligraphy carefully, one stroke at a time.
- Bimoji Shodo: practice writing beautiful characters, over and over.
In the English Training lane there is also Speed Copying English, where you copy sentences by hand at speed for a few minutes. Number Order, in the Attention Boost lane, is another training where you write numbers by hand, in order. Some of the new trainings are handwritten too, but the new ones rotate, so I don’t list them here.
Writing fast and tracing slowly in calligraphy are both handwriting, but they use different things. The first uses speed. The second uses steady attention on each stroke. I wrote about handwriting itself in The Power of Handwriting.
Writing or tapping
Every calculation training except Mini Sudoku has you write the answer with your finger. BrainDojo puts handwriting at the center of input, as I explained in the BrainDojo developer interview. There I said this about handwriting recognition:
Handwritten characters vary enormously, so recognizing them at all is hard. Recognizing what everyone writes exactly as they intended, 100% of the time, is a technical challenge and something to work on from here.
One thing that helps when writing digits: under Game Settings there is an option called “Recognizes 5 with 2 strokes”. If you write your 5 in two strokes, turning this on should mean fewer misreads. On the same screen you can also change the Multiplication Sign and Division Sign that appear in problems.
Where to start
For a first-timer, Quick Math is one place to start. It needs almost no explanation, and your own time gives you a clear marker. Once it feels familiar, move on to ones like Dice Math and How Much?, which add counting and holding things in mind. When you are somewhere you can speak out loud, adding Word Math English gives you reading, speaking and writing in one training.
If you like a training, long-press its card to add it to Favorites. If picking a set every day is a chore, you can simply leave it to Today’s Training on the home screen.
You do not need to do a lot. As I said in the interview:
Each one takes a few minutes, and if you keep doing even three a day, you can make activating your brain a habit.
How long to keep at it each day is in How Many Minutes a Day Should You Do Brain Training?.
About BrainDojo
BrainDojo is a brain training app for iPhone and iPad with more than 40 trainings covering handwriting, reading aloud, arithmetic, memory and attention. Every training in this post is free to play. Today’s Training is picked for you each day, and when you finish, you stamp the calendar. The Brain Dojo Check runs once a day, measures processing speed, inhibition and short-term memory, and returns your result as a rank.
Every training except the newest ones is free to play, and the free version shows ads. BrainDojo Plus removes the ads and lets you play the new trainings at any time. Your first session is covered in Getting Started with BrainDojo.
