A few weeks ago a friend of mine told me about Spelling City, an online educational resource for helping kids learn how to spell. Her boys use it at their school and were given over-the-summer access so they could participate in the summer program which provides eight weeks of lessons to help prevent the summer "slump" of losing ground in their education.
I was intrigued. I looked into it, liked what I saw, closed my browser, and forgot about it. Until today when I had an email inviting me to review Spelling City in exchange for a premium membership. Well, of course I jumped on the bandwagon because honestly, my kids are terrible spellers. I just keep on working with them through spelling programs, explaining the spelling rules, helping them, trying new things, and for whatever reasons, it just doesn't stick.
One day I know the light bulb is going to go on and my kids are going to "get" spelling. It did for me my senior year of high school. I used to be a bad speller. My kids were horrified when I told them that the only time I ever cheated on a test in school was in sixth grade--on a spelling test.
My senior year of high school I signed up to work on the school newspaper. Which is funny, all things considered. But, my friends were doing it and I thought it'd be better than having a study hall. Amazingly, I learned how to spell. How to write. Grammar skills I'd missed along the way. How to edit. Oh boy did I learn how to edit. These skills served me well in college. I was known on my dorm floor as the go-to person if you needed your school paper edited. I learned through this experience that though my spelling skills left something to be desired back then, my writing skills were top notch comparatively. Haha! My school did an excellent job at teaching me to write well (Thank you, Mrs. McGlone).
So, spelling. Even today, not my strength. Spell check is my friend. Hubby is my dictionary. "Honey, how do you spell .....?" Though he may roll his eyes at me, he does give me the answer.
Therefore, I am excited to set my kids up with an online spelling program to try out as part of their fun summer "school" choices. They love the computer and ask to use it all the time. They have really enjoyed other online educational websites, so I am pretty sure they will enjoy this one. But, check back in a few weeks and I'll let you know how it's going.
*Disclosure: I've been given a Premium Membership to VocabularySpellingCity.com for a candid, personal, online review. VocabularySpellingCity helps students study word lists using 25 different learning activities such as Sentence Unscramble, Handwriting Practice,WordSearch, and FlashCards. Parents can create their own spelling lists, find published lists already available on the site, or use any of dozens of free teaching resources on topics such as Synonyms and Figurative Language. Be sure to come back in three weeks to read about my experience.
There might be more free memberships available for bloggers. If you're interested, find out how you can review VocabularySpellingCity.com.
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