Thursday, April 21, 2011

Learning to Spell Words Correctly Makes Our Students Look Smart!

Spelling is a very important aspect of our students’ education. Spelling is not a measure of intelligence, but if a person misspells words consistently, it makes them look bad. Not that I am speaking from experience. Spellingcity.com is a fantastic place to help students improve their spelling skills. Whether you are a parent, teacher or a student in elementary, middle or high school, this website is a great resource. You can start by typing your spelling words each on a separate line or separating the words by commas in one window. Then click "test me", "teach me" or "play a game". When you click test me a window appears with an area to type the word. To the right of that are the buttons “say it” and “sentence”. As you might guess, the computer says the word when you click “say it” or says the word in a sentence when you click “sentence”. When you are finished typing your words click “check me” to see your results. At this point you can click “retest me on my incorrect answers” or “take the entire test again”. You can also enter the speller’s name and print out a report or a certificate. When you click “teach me” the program says each letter in the word for you and uses it in a sentence. If you click “play a game” you can use your words to play in a variety of games. You can choose between match it, alphabetize, hang mouse, word search, unscramble, audio word match, which word, missing letter, sentence unscramble and crossword. At the top of the page, clicking “find a list” will take you to links to spelling lists already created that you can use. There are also links to other spelling websites that contain spelling worksheets, lesson plans, games, phonics worksheets and spelling bees. All of this is free and can be done without even logging in. If you do register, which is also free, you can enter your school and manage your spelling and vocabulary word lists. Did I spell all my words correctly? Check it out, (the website, not my spelling)!

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