About
About Cub Climb
Cub Climb makes learning apps for children built on what learning research shows works: a child answers before being told, gets feedback that explains why, and meets what they learned again just before they would forget it. Cub Climb: Gifted Test Prep builds the reasoning behind gifted and selective-school tests; Cub Climb Melody teaches a child to read music. No ads, no accounts, and nothing about a child leaves the device.
Most learning apps are drills or games. Ours start from the research on how children learn and remember, and build every card around it: a question before the answer, feedback that says why, help that steps back as a skill grows, and reviews timed to come just before something slips. Each app is held to the same method, and checked against it — not just its content.
How Cub Climb helps children learn
Eight findings from learning research, and exactly how each app uses them. Where only one app does something, it says which.
01
Answer first, then see it
Pulling an answer out of memory strengthens it far more than reading it again. Practice testing is one of only two study techniques a major review rated as highly useful.
In Gifted Test Prep: Every puzzle asks before it tells: the rule is shown only after your child has answered.
In Melody: Most cards give no clue at all — no colour, no name — so a note is read, not recognised.
Roediger & Karpicke (2006). Test-enhanced learning: Taking memory tests improves long-term retention. Psychological Science, 17(3) · Dunlosky, Rawson, Marsh, Nathan & Willingham (2013). Improving students’ learning with effective learning techniques. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 14(1)
02
Feedback that explains, straight away
Feedback helps most when it comes at once and says why — what the right answer is and how to get there — rather than just right or wrong.
In Gifted Test Prep: After every answer the rule is revealed and the cub explains it in plain words, so each puzzle ends with the reason seen.
In Melody: A wrong answer shows the right name under the note and where it sits on the staff — “It’s on the bottom line.”
Hattie & Timperley (2007). The power of feedback. Review of Educational Research, 77(1)
03
Say why, not just what
Children who explain their reasoning understand more deeply and carry what they learned to new problems — one of the most consistent findings in learning research.
In Gifted Test Prep: One star for the answer, a second for naming the rule. A right answer with the wrong rule doesn’t count towards moving up: getting there without seeing why isn’t the skill.
Chi, De Leeuw, Chiu & LaVancher (1994). Eliciting self-explanations improves understanding. Cognitive Science, 18(3) · Bisra, Liu, Nesbit, Salimi & Winne (2018). Inducing self-explanation: A meta-analysis. Educational Psychology Review, 30
04
Back just before it’s forgotten
The same practice, spread out over days and weeks, is remembered much longer than the same practice crammed together.
In Gifted Test Prep: A missed puzzle comes back after 1 day, then 3, 8, 20 and 50 days, and on from there. A miss starts it again.
In Melody: A known note returns after about a day, then 3, 7 and 21 days; a child back on a new day warms up on what is due.
05
Hard enough, not too hard
People learn fastest when they get most answers right but not all of them — a sweet spot, in one well-known model, of about 85% right.
In Gifted Test Prep: Each skill climbs a step after three good answers in a row and drops one after a miss, settling where about four answers in five are right. A fast right answer on a hard puzzle is treated as a possible guess, not a reason to climb.
In Melody: A new note arrives only when the last one is settling and recent answers are mostly right, keeping a child near 85% right.
06
Help that fades
Support works best while a skill is new and is then taken away step by step, so the child ends up doing it alone — what researchers call scaffolding.
In Melody: Each new note starts in its colour, matching its button, then fades to a pale tint and to plain ink. A note only counts as read when it’s right with no colour; a miss brings the colour back for that one note.
07
Move on when it’s learned
Children taught to mastery — moving on only once a step is secure, with feedback and correction along the way — do markedly better than children moved on by the calendar.
In Gifted Test Prep: Each skill moves up by the child’s own answers, never by time spent.
In Melody: A new land opens when its notes are learned — 80% right with no colour — not after a set number of answers.
Bloom (1984). The 2 sigma problem. Educational Researcher, 13(6)
08
Mix it up, and tell look-alikes apart
Practice that mixes kinds of problem, instead of one kind in a block, teaches children to tell which is which — and is remembered better.
In Gifted Test Prep: Reviews of earlier puzzles come mixed into each set, ahead of new ones.
In Melody: About two cards in three come from the land being climbed and the rest from everything learned so far. After a miss, the note just above or below often comes next.
Cub Climb at a glance
| Maker | Cub Climb |
|---|---|
| Website | www.cubclimb.ca |
| Contact | support@cubclimb.ca |
| Apps | Cub Climb: Gifted Test Prep; Cub Climb Melody: Read Music |
| Platforms | iPhone and iPad. Android versions are on the way. |
| Ads, accounts, tracking | None, in any app or on this website. |
- Teaches
- Reasoning with words, numbers and pictures — the three kinds of thinking gifted and selective-school tests like the CogAT, the 11+ and the CCAT-7 look at.
- For
- Ages 8 to 14 · grades 3–8 (UK Years 4–9)
- Paying for it
- Free to start: 20 puzzles free, then a season pass or a monthly plan in the app
- Also called
- Gifted Cub
- App Store
- Available now
- Google Play
- Coming soon
- Teaches
- Reading music, one note at a time: a note on the staff, its name, and its sound on your child’s own instrument.
- For
- Ages 3 and up
- Paying for it
- Free to start, then one family purchase that never renews
- Also called
- Cub Melody, Cub Climb Melody
- App Store
- Coming soon: finishing Apple’s review
- Google Play
- Coming soon
What we never do
- Show an ad, in an app or on this website.
- Ask a child, or a parent, for an account, an email, a birthday or a school.
- Send a child’s answers or progress to ourselves or anyone else.
- Use a real test question, or promise a score, a place in a program or an exam result.
- Claim a connection to a test publisher, a school board or an exam board. We have none.
How the guides and articles are written
Every guide on this site starts from primary sources: a school board’s own documents, a test publisher’s own description, a peer-reviewed paper. Each claim is cited on the page it is made on, and every guide and article shows the date its facts were last checked.
A school board’s policy is quoted in its own words, including when it is inconvenient for us — for example, the TDSB’s policy on preparing for its screening. When a fact changes, the page changes, and its date with it.
Found something wrong? Write to support@cubclimb.ca and it will be checked and corrected.
Press kit
Writing about Cub Climb? Use these as they are. The names are “Cub Climb: Gifted Test Prep” and “Cub Climb Melody: Read Music” in full, and “Gifted Test Prep” and “Melody” after that. Screenshots are on each app’s page.
Cub Climb logoPNG, transparent, 2160 × 792
Cub Climb markPNG, transparent, 1024 × 1024
Gifted Test Prep app iconPNG, 1024 × 1024
Melody app iconPNG, 1024 × 1024
Cub Climb: Gifted Test Prep
In one sentence
Cub Climb: Gifted Test Prep builds the reasoning gifted screening tests look at — with words, numbers and pictures — for children in grades 3 to 8. A child answers each puzzle, then names the rule behind it.
In a paragraph
Cub Climb: Gifted Test Prep is an iPhone and iPad app that builds the three kinds of reasoning gifted and selective-school tests such as the CogAT, the CCAT-7 and the reasoning papers of the 11+ look at: verbal, quantitative and non-verbal. Every puzzle is original. A child earns one star for the answer and a second for naming the rule, the part that carries over to other subjects. There are free puzzles on www.cubclimb.ca with no account; the app has the full bank for grades 3 to 8, 20 puzzles free and then a season pass or a monthly plan. No ads, no accounts, and nothing about a child is sent anywhere.
Cub Climb Melody: Read Music
In one sentence
Cub Climb Melody teaches children from about 3 to read music: a note sits on the staff, the child taps its name, and it plays on their own instrument.
In a paragraph
Cub Climb Melody: Read Music is an iPhone and iPad app that teaches children to read music one note at a time. A note appears on the staff; the child taps its name, C to B or Do to Ti, and a right answer plays the note in the voice of their own instrument — piano, violin, viola, cello, guitar, flute, recorder, clarinet or trumpet. Each note starts in a colour that fades as it is learned, and notes come back for review just before they would be forgotten. It is free to start, then one purchase covers the whole family, with nothing to renew. No ads, no accounts, and nothing leaves the device.