Many of your children bring home a weekly spelling list. Your child may have a packet that’s due at the end of the week, a list to memorize, or a combination of the two. Some children struggle with spelling or tend to reverse letters. Even the best spellers must put in preparation time to do well on their tests. For children of all levels, Spelling City is a gift. This website allows parents or a child to type in the spelling words of the week. You can then click “add 1, add 5, add 10, or add in bulk” if the number of words exceeds the number of spaces to enter all of the spelling words. After inputting the words, you have a series of choices.

You can click “teach me,” in which a voice spells out a word and uses it in a computer-generated sentence. Each letter flashes–in order–as a voice spells out the word, creating both auditory and visual reinforcement.

The next choice is to play one of many possible games. The computer takes the list of words and creates crossword puzzles, hangman, matching, and many other games. I prefer not to use the games that scramble the letters because why do you want to see the letters scrambled when you’re trying to remember them in the correct order?

The final option is to press “test me”. An animated voice tells you to put your spelling list away and not to peek at the words. You can then click on the first space, and the computer will then say the word it wants you to spell. You can click on the button “say” for it to repeat the word or the button “sentence” to hear the word used in a sentence.

After finishing the test, you can click the button “check me,” and the computer will grade the test. If any words are spelled incorrectly, the computer crosses them out and respells the words. What is also nice is that you have the option to retake the whole test or just the part you missed.

My students, their parents, and I are raving about this website.

The example I am sharing involves memorizing the states on a map. Many of my students would complain about the length of time it took them to remember 50 states, their locations, and their spellings. I made up these mnemonics (although it is better for the child to make up ones that are meaningful to him or her), and my students memorized these first 17 states in a matter of minutes, not hours.

“Are you having a COW?”
1. C=California
2. 0=Oregon
3. W=Washington

“NA!”
4. N=Nevada
5. A=Arizona

“I OWE U something NEW!”
6. I OWE=Idaho
7. U=Utah
8. NEW=New Mexico

“MAN, is that shirt TAN?” “WHY?” “It’s not your COLOR!”
9. MAN TAN=Montana
10. WHY=Wyoming
11. COLOR=Colorado

“DAKOTA, do you want to go NORTH OR SOUTH? Well, if you are really ASKing me, I C(K)AN go HOME to TEXAS.”
12. North Dakota
13. South Dakota
14. ASK=NebrASKa
15. C(K)AN=Kansas
16. HOME=Oklahoma
17. TEXAS