Good Spelling Software Titles?

June 7, 2006 9:51 AM

What are good software titles, appropriate for middle school aged kids, that will help kids learn spelling?

In particular, I'm looking for titles which can say a word and have the child spell it, rather than just a glorified spelling list where the pronunciation of the word is never heard. I'll consider any titles, however, and would be interested in hearing about your experiences with any spelling programs, their plusses and minuses.

posted by Chanther to Education (5 answers total)

I remember "Mavis Beacon teaches typing" from my school years ago.

From what I can remember, there are a few games included that were directed towards kids, but they were really bad back then.

Perhaps they've advanced the program a bit more since 1996.
posted by psyward at 11:40 AM on June 7, 2006

Are you looking for Windows, Macintosh, or other?
posted by unixrat at 11:45 AM on June 7, 2006

Response by poster: Either Windows or Mac is fine.
posted by Chanther at 5:16 PM on June 7, 2006

Tommy and the Magical Words is a fun indie spelling game. I'm not sure if it would be right for your needs, but I enjoyed it.
posted by Fourmyle at 5:41 PM on June 7, 2006

When I worked at a software store forever ago the big educational games were Reader Rabbit and Where in ____ is Carmen SanDiego?. You might try looking at one of these.

Here's a link to Amazon.com's listing of Reader Rabbit titles so you can look at ratings and reviews. And here's the same for Carmen SanDiego (although I think SanDiego teaches spelling more tangentially, focusing more on geography and/or history).

I notice that my local library (Portland) has eight different versions of Reader Rabbit available for check-out and seven versions of Carmen SanDiego, so if your town has a good library you might check there.
posted by blueberry at 12:05 PM on June 8, 2006