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English Spelling - the online interactive course

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Further information for teachers:

Spellzone is an online course in English spelling written and designed especially for older students: teenagers and adults. It is ideal for:

• students who have English as their first language but have spelling difficulties e.g. dyslexia
• students from all over the world who are learning English as a foreign language
• Teachers in schools, colleges or EFL/ESL language schools, who will find the material a useful addition to their own courses.

Spellzone can be used in the school or college classroom, or can be recommended to students/parents for private study at home.

The program consists of over 450 web pages, divided into 37 units, covering all the main topics of English spelling. The aim is not just to test spelling, as other programs do, but also to provide a comprehensive teaching course. The program includes:

• underpinning instruction in the basic concepts of spelling such as consonants, long and short vowels, syllables, prefixes and suffixes
• the different sounds in the English language; extensive word lists showing the various ways of spelling each sound and any rules that govern the choice of spelling
• regular English spelling rules e.g. when (and why) we double or change letters when adding suffixes
• words which break spelling rules; and tips on how to remember these difficult words
• a special emphasis on homophones - e.g. wait/weight, herd/heard, currant/current: those words the computer spellchecker will not spot; tips on how to remember which spelling for which meaning
• several sections on easily confused endings e.g. able/ible, ant/ent, ate/ite, cial/tial
• the differences between British and American spelling
• for every teaching point there are practice exercises and tests, often with a choice of different levels of difficulty; all these are interactive and marked instantly; the user has the option of skipping or repeating any exercise.
• In addition to the 37 main units, there are twelve extra 'Beat the Spell Check' units with practice exercises and tests on homophones.

For a complete list of the Program contents, click here.

For more detailed information on the teaching content, click here.

The Spellzone website has been constructed by professional designers. It is quick to load, uses sound and includes attractive, colourful images chosen for their appeal to mature users. The course itself is written by a very experienced teacher, using those 'tried and tested' methods of teaching spelling which modern research has shown to be most effective i.e. a combined phonic and visual approach. The trial site has received acclaim from both students and teachers. To see some of these comments, click here.

Spellzone has been approved by Curriculum Online, which is a site run by the British government's Department for Education and Skills. Teachers in UK schools: please click here for further details.