About Spellzone
Spellzone is an online course in English spelling. It is used by those who need help with spelling, including learners with dyslexia. It unlocks the mystery of English spelling for many people, such as
- Students in schools, colleges and dyslexia centres
- Adults who want to improve their spelling
- Companies who provide staff training
- People learning English in over 50 countries
- Parents helping their children at home
Some features of Spellzone:
A complete teaching course of 450 pages written by Shireen Shuster, covering all spelling rules, including:
- The meaning of terms such as vowel, consonant, syllable, prefix, suffix etc.
- Common words with tricky spellings, for example: should, whose, because
- Many sections on the different ways of spelling each sound, for example:
boy/boil; term/nurse/twirl/earth; action/tension/musician - Suffixes:When to double letters, for example: drop/dropping; flap/flapped
When to drop letters, for example: bake/baking; bride/bridal
When to change letters, for example: try/tried; party/parties - Homophones: How to spell words that sound the same but have different meanings, for example:
which/witch; peace/piece; current/current; there/their/they're
Word lists covering all sections of the course:
There are extensive word list for each section of the course. Often there are word lists at different levels of difficulty: basic and more advanced.
There are also lists for many topics, for example: maths, food, business, art, engineering.
You can also upload your own word lists on any topic and get practice in them using our games.
'Look, Cover, Write, Check' tests to help learn spellings:
Try our online version of this well-known spelling aid. It works with all our word lists and your own. It gives students a useful way to learn at their own pace.
Games to support learning:
You can play several different spelling games using both our word lists and your own. These are fun to play but have also been designed to boost learning while playing.
Interactive course tests:
All the teaching points and word lists are followed by interactive tests to check understanding and learning. You see your results instantly; if you have made a mistake you can also see where you went wrong. A red, yellow, green 'traffic lights' code gives you advice on whether you should repeat that part of the course, or move on. Tests can be repeated as often as you wish.
Records are kept of all your progress:
A full record is kept on our secure database of all scores from 'Look, Cover, Write, Check' practice, games and course tests. Teachers and tutors may view their own students' progress but students can only see their own scores.
A comprehensive dictionary including sound and translations:
Each word in the lists can be checked for meaning in our online dictionary and you can hear the word read aloud. To help those who are learning English, words can be translated into 35 languages.