I have a confession to make. My kids are not very good at spelling; and it’s my fault. Spelling is just one of those things I tend to push aside in favor of a history lesson or a good read aloud. My husband and I are both good spellers and believe it to be a most important skill. Having said that, here I am with two atrocious spellers.
Enter SpellQuizzer. SpellQuizzer is a small program that helps kids learn their spelling words using voice recordings made by the parent. (Most computers these days come with a built in microphone and mine has worked very well with this program. For those that don’t have one, you can usually pick one up for about $10.00.) The child listens to the recorded word and types it into the program. If they are correct, they advance on to the next word. If they get the spelling wrong, they are shown the correct spelling and asked to try again at the end of the list.
My children have been using SpellQuizzer for a couple weeks now; and I must say, they have improved. Not just in spelling, either. Their attitudes have changed a bit. It’s nice to see genuine happiness and confidence on their faces when they score perfectly on a test – which really does happen now!
Here’s some of the things I love about this little program.
Size: It’s a small program. It will not eat away your precious hard drive space or use up tons of memory.
Simplicity: SpellQuizzer gets high marks in the ease of use category. I had the program up and running with lists recorded in no time at all.
Efficiency: Creating spelling lists is fast and easy, taking only minutes. I can input all my spelling lists at one time and then direct the kids to spelling list #1 or #2 or #3, etc. at the appropriate time. We use these lists for practice quizzes as well as the real tests. You can also prepare review lists by choosing words already added into the program.
Another benefit here is the fact that you can download pre-made spelling lists with voice recordings directly into the program. OR share your own lists by uploading them to the SpellQuizzer website.
Personalization: With the sound feature, you can make the spelling word sentences silly or relevant to your own children. For example: I might record, “monkey. Caleb is a silly monkey.”
Independent work: The children can take their spelling tests at any time by themselves. No need for me to be sitting with them administering a test when someone else needs my help too. (note: my children often complain of my administration of spelling tests because it involves me going in and out of the room so much!) Anyone homeschooling more than one child will quickly see this benefit. Independence is a necessity in large-family homeschools.
Flexibility: SpellQuizzer is a program NOT a curriculum. You can use this software with any spelling curriculum. My family is using it with the spelling lists in our language arts workbooks.
You can also use this program without a microphone. You have the option of typing in a prompting sentence instead of a recording. For example, “This animal is furry and says meow.” The child would then type the word “cat”.
An added bonus to this program is that you can use it for things other than spelling. Because of the personal recording feature, you could record comprehension questions for a book they are reading, history text, etc. This is really simple to do if you ask ‘yes or no’ and ‘true or false’ questions. Or how about math drills??
We are coming up with so many uses for this program – the possibilities are endless!
You can check out SpellQuizzer here.