As part of The Schoolhouse Review Crew I received a free Vocabulary Spelling City.com online subscription to review.
Vocabulary Spelling City offers over 42,000 spelling words with customizable sentences and definitions, a real person who says each word and sentence, free home pages for teachers and parents to save lists, teacher training videos, free printable handwriting worksheets, free teaching resources with lists and lesson plans, twenty-five games to play online or to print. Games include: Alphabetical Order, Unscramble, Parts of Speech, HangMouse, Crossword Puzzle, WordSearch, and Vocabulary Test.
Here’s an overview:
Vocabulary Spelling City’s mission is efficient game-based study of literacy skills using any word list.
Parents and teachers can search for and use the words and lists on the site or upload their own. I have a spelling curriculum that I’ve used for all my kids for years. It was very easy to input the words I wanted each of my students to use. In just a matter of minutes, I had a few lists for all four of my kids. I’ve only done 6 lists so far, but it would be very easy to input a whole years worth of spelling lists in a fairly short amount of time. I’ll be working on that shortly.
Once I had a list of words, I was able to pick which activities I wanted the students to complete. I originally had Teach Me, Alphabetical Order, Unscramble, HangMouse, Crossword Puzzle, WordSearch, and Spelling Test. Many of the games and activities are available to print for worksheets. I haven’t used this feature, as all my kids having been using it online only. You also have the option of choosing which students you want to assign the list to. That makes it easy if you have students that can work on the same list. You also have the option of choosing a due date, one that you set for the length of time you want. I gave all my students new lists on Mondays and with a due date Fridays. If they found the list easy, and worked ahead, they could finish the work earlier and have a day or two off from spelling.
As they were doing it the first week, all four of the kids said they didn’t like HangMouse. As the kids are working down the list of activities, they have to complete each one before they can move onto the next activity. So I went in to change it. However, once students start working on a list, you can’t change the activities. So unfortunately, deleting that assignment and starting over with it was the only way I could find to make the changes I needed.
That was the only problem I had with Vocabulary Spelling City, though. Overall, it was a great website to work with. My children have been enjoying their spelling lessons much more and spending more time working with on them than when they were writing them out on paper. And that’s a good thing. 🙂 I also really liked the voice that said the words out loud. It’s a real voice, not a computerized voice.
I will be continuing to use this website with my kids for the rest of the school year, most likely returning to use for for a couple of more years.
Registration is free at Vocabulary Spelling City! When you register, you can save and customize your own lists.
Premium memberships are available, also. A family with up to 5 students costs $29.99. There are also several classroom rates, check the website for those.
You can use Vocabulary Spelling City for free, but when you upgrade to a premium membership, you will receive:
Automated student recordkeeping – no more manual grading of tests.
Complete access to our vocabulary content including definitions, parts of speech, synonyms and antonyms.
Premium learning games and activities that motivate students to study.
Student and list grouping features for differentiated learning.
The ability to create assignments for individual students, groups, or the entire class.
No commercial ads.
Visit Vocabulary Spelling City to see what works for your family.
*Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a free subscription in the hope that I would mention it on my blog. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers. My opinions are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”