I found Wordigo Game to be exactly as advertised – an educational game that’s not so educational that it’s no fun but also not so fun that it’s not educational. Even my poorest speller begs to play. As a parent, I have to be willing to miss the completion points because I’m constantly bombarded with, ‘Mom, is this a word?’ And that’s okay because they’re spelling…and liking it!
The SpellQuizzer has been a great way to review, test and re-test as necessary. My 4th and 6th- graders really enjoy hearing Mom’s voice quiz their spelling list, even when I am momentarily unavailable to help them study. They are tickled with the “cheering crowd” they hear when they achieve a perfect score! The only thing I would change is being able to see the grade on tests for which they do not score 100%. A help for busy parents.
Elizabeth
Heath, OH
Sequential Spelling
There was once a time that I wholeheartedly recommended this spelling program. However, that is no more. I used this program with three different students for about a year. They were three very different students- one ace speller, one in need of serious remedial spelling help, and one who was right on track in spelling. I recommended this program before because it was fun, easy, the boys enjoyed it, is relatively inexpensive, requires no teacher prep, gives immediate feedback, can be used for multiple students easily, is not consumable, and was pretty easy to complete each day. Turns out, it was too good to be true. My ace speller was terribly bored. My remedial speller made very little to no progress. My on track speller began slipping behind. I believe this is because this spelling program is completely lacking- spelling rule training phonics training segmenting/syllable training My students learned little other than how to change a few letters to make a new word in a word family. This training didn’t stick. In their daily writing I often saw misspelled words that we had already covered in their spelling tests. I wouldn’t even recommend using this program along with a supplemental program that covers all it’s missing. In my opinion it’s simply missing exactly what it claims to teach- spelling training.
My son is a poor speller, so I bought this hoping to supplement our regular lessons, thinking he could work on his own to improve his spelling. He was a 6th grader at the time, I started him in the 5th grade level. The words they gave him were very challenging. There is no way for the teacher to see the word list ahead of time. The words lists seemed to be topical. First were science related words, then world countries (many even I struggled with!), then flower names and instruments. We didn’t use it any further than this. Also, if the student takes too long to type in the answer, even if they get it right, they do not get a perfect score. I would not recommend this to anyone with a struggling speller, or who is easily discouraged.
I was excited about this new spelling program, but then when I tried it I was a little dis-enchanted. I felt like doing spelling everyday took up too much time in our school day. I have use Spelling Power in the past with two of my other children. I prefer to give words once a week, have them practice them on their own, and then have a test in the end of the week. However, I like the immediate correcting of the Sequential Spelling program and have tried to incorporate the two together into something that works for me.
