See and Spell: Practice Vocab or Spelling!

Remember the old See and Say toy from years ago? Now there is a website called Spin and Spell based on the same idea, but this time children practice their vocuabulary or their spelling online! (There is no string or cord to pull to make this work! Ha!)

Basically, you start off by choosing a category of words: animals, transportation, food, clothing, and home. The virtual board will populate with pictures. Students click the picture to make their choice, and then "spell" the word they chose clicking the letters on the see and spell wheel. When they are finished, they can check their work.

If you're students are not ready to spell yet, use it to teach vocabulary! Click the picture, and then instead of spelling it, choose 'Show me the word". The picture will appear with the corresponding vocabulary word.

This is a wonderful site to use with ELL students or primary students, depending on what your focus is. Enjoy!

Behold: The LiveScribe Pen has Educational Applications

I recently received a LiveScribe pen for demo through work. Shortly after, the vendor came out to show how this pen could be used on a basic level, and how it could integrate into a classroom setting.

What is a Livescribe pen? The pen contains a small camera to record your movements as you write on special dot paper. The dots are almost invisible to the naked eye. You can purchase notebooks, notepads, and journals for your pen, as long as you don't duplicate the notebooks. For example, if you already bought and used "notebook one", don't purchase another "notebook one" unless you want to overwrite all of your previous work. Each notepad has different dot paper that the camera records. You can also print out extra dot paper from the LiveScribe website if you like. Within the dot paper, there are small controls that are embedded into the page: most notably: record and stop.

This is how it works:

1. Click record on your page during a lecture or presentation.
2. Start using your pen and notebook to write notes during the lecture
3. Click stop when you are finished.
4. If you "tap" any of the words you wrote during the lecture, you will hear what was being said in the room at that point in your notes.

No - the pen does not "speak" your written notes. It is not text-to-speech. No - the pen does not turn your messy handwriting into digital print (handwriting recognition). But imagine - you don't have to worry about writing EVERYTHING down during lectures anymore! For example, what if you decided just to write the main ideas and record the rest of the "details" using the pen? It would save your fingers from endless scribbling during class, and you will have captured everything you need to study. Upload your audio and notes to your computer so you can play the audio back on the computer instead of just through earbuds. Click a button to upload these notes online, get a URL to your recorded notes, and share your notes with colleagues, friends, or guests.

So how could this be used in the classroom? Think of all of the ways this pen could be used in the primary classroom.

1. Talking Books: Make your own living books! Glue a small piece of dot paper on a story book, draw a dot on the page as you record your voice reading the text on the page, and voila! Now students who have difficulty reading can listen to the book and follow along without an assistant.
2. Talking Word Walls: Ever have kids write the wrong word down even if they used your word wall as reference? Now record your voice saying the word on the bulletin board. When kids click the word, they will hear the word being read out loud. It takes the guesswork out of "which word do I need?
3. Singing Notebook: embed songs all in once place - in your notebook
4. Running Records: Record kids reading for fluency for playback for parent conferences or so you can code the passage more accurately later in the day.
5. ELL Vocab: Do you teach English as a Second Language students? Do you have objects labeled all over the room? Use the pen to record your voice on each label, so kids can hear the word instead of just see the word. Great for pronunciation practice!
6. Make up spelling tests: Absent kids take a spelling test with the pen, instead of you.

Do you want to see more ideas? Check out this wiki for amazing screencasts and ideas.

Interactive Spelling Practice with Spellingcity.com

Wow, teachers and parents! Have you seen Spellingcity.com? This is the best free spelling site I have seen in a long time. Basically, the teacher or student can enter a list of spelling words and the site will provide you with interactive practice. First, the site will say the word to you (in a very natural voice, I might add) and you type the word. The site will speak a sentence with the spelling word in correct context as well. Press the button to check your answers and the site corrects your work. If you get one wrong, you have the option of completing extra practice with the word.

Here is what Spellingcity.com boasts on their website (and well deserved boasting!):

“SpellingCity is a fun new educational site that can help children improve their spelling skills:

• contains over 25,000 words, including plurals, contractions, future and past tenses


• uses a REAL human voice that says both the word and the word in a sentence


• a ‘Teach Me’ function that spells out the word using both visual and auditory input to improve retention


• teachers and parents can enter and save their own spelling lists for their students/children


• students can play games with their words or any saved lists


• teachers and parents can save and share their lists.


• the forum allows teachers and parents to share lists and ideas”

Hands down - this is the best interactive spelling site on the internet that I have seen!

Sight Words with Samson

Sight words with Samson is an interactive site to help children learn basic sight words in English. There are very few good sites online that allow children to practice sight vocabulary, but this site is worth mentioning. Sight words with Samson also outlines 10 reasons why practicing sites words are important to a child’s development on their site. I recommend this site for children learning to read as well as English-as-a-second-language learners. Even though it is a paid site, the fee is nominal. For one family, it will cost you $29.95 a year. For one teacher, it will cost you $79.95 a year, but the teacher will also have 30 usernames associated with the registration so that everyone in the class can have his or her own username.