Category: Special offers

Spelling – You either got it or you don’t.

As a fairly good speller, I still cringe over mistakes that I find in my own writing, and I’m sure others find ones that I have missed. Spelling is an area in which we never finish learning, and one that you can never start learning too young. My young readers have their basic phonics rules down, so this was the natural next step.

Wordy Querty will help your child learn and apply these 20 spelling rules:

Product: Wordy Querty

Details: We used the online version, but it is available on CD as well. This is a program to help build on basic phonics and begin to help children build their typing skills and their spelling skills. It works through a series of 20 spelling rules and kids follow six steps to learn the rules and when to apply them. They work on the patterns of the spelling rule, sing along with their hosts as they learn the rule put to music, toss out incorrectly spelled words, click on correctly spelled words to complete sentences, and write and read stories. Each of these steps helps to teach and solidify correct spelling habits. Designed for kids 7-9 years old.

Price: $35 for the CD

What we loved . . .

• Teaches spelling without boredom. The games are fun, the songs are cute, the graphics are great, the teaching is clear. Kids naturally want to keep playing this program. The learning happens almost without them realizing. My son begged and begged to play this game. He would race through other school work, chores, and other responsibilities so he could get back on the computer and play more Wordy Querty. He cheered as it loaded. This is an incredibly fun way to learn.
• Independent. Kids can fairly easily work this program on their own. It walks them through everything they need to do and teaches them the rules.
• Great for beginning readers. Although the age is 7-9 my 5 year old could easily start this program as well. As long as your child has a solid start to reading they will likely benefit from this program. They might need to move a little more slowly if their reading is still developing, but the program worked well for my young readers as well.
• Lots of repetition in different formats. The words will come at the student time and again in different angles, games, lists, and stories so the kids can really cement the new rule and words that they are learning.
• Can go back and redo tough lessons. They automatically have to go back one time, but after that they can continue to return voluntarily (or under parent’s orders . . .) to better the score. The program simply saves the new test score in place of the old one.
• Parent login gives information on student progress. The chart shows how well the kids are doing at the various levels. This helps you see at a glance which lesson the student is struggling with and succeeding in.

Some considerations . . .

• Kids can learn to play the system. My son realized that if he got words wrong the program didn’t care it just kept passing him along (after one do-over). So, after the games were over and he was on the test for each level he just pressed enter or space and flew through the list without really typing any of the words. I didn’t realize that this was possible, I was just thrilled that he got through all 20 levels in 2 days. What a bright little guy I have! Uh, yeah. Well, when I was reviewing his scores I saw that he was getting 0% on each of the levels after the first 4. So, now he is back redoing it the right way with me keeping a closer tab on his progress.
• Learning through trial and error. It seems to work, but it pulls a lot of words and as the kids are learning it they are really just guessing what is right and what is wrong. They click on random words or columns and sometimes they are right and sometimes they are wrong. They do begin to see the patterns and begin to get more right, but I think most of the rules will need more than a once through the lesson to really grasp and most kids want to just fly through it and have fun.
• Difficulty of spelling words doesn’t necessarily progress throughout levels. Because they are going according to a list of spelling rules some of the words in later lists are very easy while some in earlier lists were rather challenging.

Wordy Querty builds beautifully on what Talking Fingers started. My 5 and 7 year olds absolutely love both programs and beg to play them. They have learned so much in the process in the midst of the play. These are great programs to help kids get a secure footing in typing, reading, and now spelling as well.

For more TOS Crew reviews on this product, check out the TOS Crew blog.

Disclaimer: This product was provided to me free of charge through Wordy Querty as part of my participation in The Old Schoolhouse Homeschool Crew. I received no additional compensation and the opinions expressed here come from my personal experiences and sincere thoughts.

Tweet