Software to support spelling
Whether children learn to spell through segmenting and blending, or through a whole word
approach there is software available to match their learning style. Many of the programmes also
link directly with objectives and activities in schemes already being used in school e.g. Jolly
Phonics, Letters and Sounds. Software may require the student to spell high frequency words or
give the option to add your own, but in most cases the software is motivating, fun and can
encourage independence in the process of learning to spell.
Phonomena Price band a
Based on research carried out at Oxford Brookes University, this
programme uses games to help those who have difficulty with
auditory processing and phonological awareness. The adaptive
learning environment uses accelerated learning methods to push the
learner to the edge of their ability.
Suitable for all ages, but most suitable to KS1
www.dyslexic.com
Phoneme Track Price band a
Provides activities to identify, segment, blend and manipulate
phonemes. The quirky characters keep the students interested as
they progress through several differentiated levels. Teacher’s
options allow word lists to be edited and user preferences set.
www.dyslexic.com
www.semerc.com
KS1 & KS2
On the Ball Spelling Skills Price band a
Has been created to make spellings easy and fun. It contains four
activities that have been designed to help children practise and learn
spellings in the motivating context of a football game. Children can
create their own word lists and then choose to play either against a
classmate or the computer. A timer is displayed on-screen and pupils
must see how quickly they can enter the correct spellings. The
quicker they are the more likely they are to score a goal.
www.sherston.com
21 day free approval
www.wordshark.co.uk
demo discs available
KS2
Wordshark Price band b
Combines the excitement of computer games with the serious task of
learning to read and spell. It offers 41 games which use sound,
graphics and text to teach and reinforce word recognition and
spelling. The programme includes phonics, onset and rime,
homophones, spelling rules, common letter patterns, visual and
auditory patterns, prefixes, suffixes, roots, word division, high
frequency words, use of words in context, alphabet and dictionary
skills and more.
KS 2 & KS3
www.nessy.com
demo discs available
Nessy Learning Programme / Nessy GamesPlayer
Price band c and a
Designed for pupils of all ages and abilities to learn how to read,
write and spell confidently. Combines structured incremental
phonics linked with language, writing skills and vocabulary
development - comes with good teacher resources.
Nessy GamesPlayer follows a structured learning programme and is
great as a support for the Nessy Learning Programme, or can be
followed independently. Children can record their own words or
select from pre-recorded lists that include key words from the NLS.
Lexion Price band d
Lexion combines extensive, tailored literacy exercises and in-depth
assessment suitable for use with a wide range of pupils with specific
learning difficultie. It provides all the tools needed to identify areas
of weakness, create tailor-made exercises to suit the individual's
needs and track pupils progress.
www.dyslexic.com
AccelerRead Acclerwrite Price band a
This is a teaching scheme which uses speech technology to improve
literacy skills. It provides full instructions on how to use almost any
computer to improve reading and writing skills. Comes with colourcoded flash cards, photocopiable record sheets, along with blank
flash cards for you to print off with your own sentences. Requires a
computer that has a sound card, and a talking word processor or
text-to-speech program. E.g Clicker, Penfriend, Textease
KS3 & KS4
www.dyslexic.com
Starspell Price band b
Using a ‘Look-Cover-Write-Check’ strategy, Starspell helps learners
at all ages to improve their spelling. Designed to be both easy and
fun to use for all ages, Every word is spoken and also given in a
spoken sentence for an example of context, making this programme
very accessible for dyslexic users. Starspell contains around 800
word lists and users can create and maintain personal word lists, use
multi-sensory activities and print word list worksheets
All KS
www.dyslexic.com
www.q-and-d.co.uk free trials
see also www.busythings.co.uk
for free 28 day trial
Dog and Cat series- Early Literacy, Letters and Sounds phase one,
two and three. Price band a
Children start from learning letters and sounds and developing skills
in letter recognition and recall, and progress to blending and
segmenting and word recognition. They then move onto mastering
further graphemes and then grapheme-phoneme correspondences,
Letters and Sounds Phase Two and three link directly to the
objectives and activities suggested in Letters and Sounds: Principles
and Practice of High Quality Phonics. Packed with rewarding and
entertaining activities
Foundation and KS1