There are a lot of sites out there designed for spelling practice. I thought it would be helpful to create a “The Best…” list to narrow them down a bit.
For English Language Learners, and for others, the best spelling sites are ones that offer audio and also use the words in the context of sentences:
Catch The Spelling is a series of games specifically geared towards English Language Learners.
The Alpha-Bot game. It’s a nice game where you first listen to the word spoken and then have to find the correct letters to spell it. I probably should place it a little higher on the list, but I learned about this game after I completed this post, and was just too lazy to change the rankings :).
Word Sort is from Houghton Mifflin. In addition to providing audio, it has the added feature of challenging students to look for word patterns. However, the words are not used in sentences.
The Visual Thesaurus Spelling Bee. You don’t have to register to play, and it automatically adapts to your spelling ability. It remembers which words you got right and wrong and quizzes you periodically on words at your spelling level that you spelled incorrectly in the past. A human voice, and not a computerized one, says the words. Plus, it shows you a diagram of similar words. It doesn’t give you a sentence example using the word, but I guess you can’t have everything…
The Spelling Bee from Annenberg Media. Not only does it let you pick your level of difficulty, provide audio support, and give the words in context, but the context is not just in a sentence — it tells you a story.
Spelling City has all the features that one can ask for, and is plenty of fun. You can make your own word list, or create your own.
Spellzone is a new interactive site to learn and practice…spelling. It has practice activities, games, and I especially like that the words are grouped based on spelling patterns — plus, they have audio, too! The only negative, and it’s a big one, is that the words are not used in sentences (another new negative – they’ve begun charging).
The British Council has just unveiled a new feature on their site called Speak And Spell. It has lots of interactives.
Though I wish they had a different name (I’m not fond of focusing attention to IQ tests and scores), Big IQ Kids does look like a good free site for students to practice spelling. It provides the word in the context of a sentence, provides synonyms, and even the “rules.” Plus, it provides audio support for all written text.
Spell is from The British Council. It has interactives for ELLs about…spelling.
As always, feedback is welcome.
If you found this post useful, you might want to look at previous “The Best…” lists and also consider subscribing to this blog for free.
Hi Larry,
I use http://www.tutpup.com. Students must spell words that are spoken to them. The activity is a multi-player game. There are 5 levels of difficulty. Teachers can create class accounts, so they can monitor the progress and statistics of their students.
Hello Larry,
This site does not help with teaching spelling, but it does help with teaching sentence structure and sentence diagramming.
It focuses on teaching grammar through sentence diagrams. Many ESL/EFL students and teachers use it.
http://www.english-grammar-revolution.com
🙂 Best,
Elizabeth
Great post! I am a college sophomore with a dual major in Physics and Mathematics @ University of California, Santa Barbara. By the way, i came across these excellent spelling flashcards. Its also a great initiative by the FunnelBrain team. Amazing!!!
Thanks Larry. There are some great sites here. I would only like to add the BBC Skillswise site (http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/words/spelling/waystolearn/lookcover/game.shtml). It’s a good fun site that students of all ages love. One strength is the content based wordlists. These help to connect the learning of spelling to the learning of vocabulary – something I am very keen on. Too often students are put off spelling as it appears to have little or no connection to language learning. This helps to redress that balance. Another reason to highlight this one is that it is a visual site that teaches spelling by looking at words, which is the way after all that spelling works.
As a teacher of EFL I am most unconvinced by the aural approach as driven by dictation or dictation like programs. Given the nature of the English language that does tend to compound spelling problems as opposed to solving them
In your opinion, is it better to fix millions of logical children who cannot read an illogical language or fix an illogical language so that logical children can read! Think I am nuts! Roosevelt, G. B. Shaw, Mark Twain, Carnegie, Websters, B. Franklin, and Dewey all agree with me! Were they nuts?
Don’t worry! We won’t force you to learn a new language, but your kids and/or grand-children will thank you if you lobby our elected politicians to start to phase in a regularized spelling system in schools in 2020.
SpellingCity is my favorite! My students pay the games using their weekly words on our interactive whiteboard during literacy centers. I love that I can give my tests online.
anything for (young) adults?
My older high school students seem to like these sites.
I came across your web site and have enjoyed reading the articles and content. The focus of your site is along the lines of our unique spelling word game app; Triwordz. I believe our free app may be of interest to you and your readers. I hope you find it fun, and worthy enough to consider mentioning on your site or sharing with your subscribers. You can download it via Google Play or the Apple app store. More information can be found at http://www.triwordz.com.
Thank you and respectfully,
Alan London
Are there any ‘word of the day’ type emails that get sent directly to your inbox each day?
I assume they are, but don’t know of any. I’d recommend you check the various dictionary websites.
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Online spelling practice
Hi! I’m looking for a free site where I can write a sentence (or a few), the computer reads it to my child, my child write the sentence on the computer and then the site corrects the sentence wrote. My kid knows it’s power word when ask one by one. But when he comes to write sentences he makes lots of mistakes!!! Ex. I cant do dis!
If you have any it would be great!
Sorry, no site comes to mind
I checked out Kispell.com Among the list of games was a link “Sexy Girls Nearby”. I think I would steer away from Kidspell.com!
Thanks, I’ll delete it.
I have developed a site for people to practice spelling and at the same time learn about some topic. User can create their own spelling sentence question and spelling words.
It would be a good website to practice spelling.
https://learning-wonder.intelgift.com/
Check out https://SpellWizards.co.uk
They do custom spellings where you can create your own sentences and get a weekly email report.