As a kid, I was never very good at spelling, so my mom bought me this neat calendar that had a different hard-to-spell word for each day. That was what really got me interested in spelling. (Incidentally, I still remember my favorite word from the calendar. It's "quagmire". Bonus points to anyone who knows what it means!) When I got to grad school, I had a roommate who could not spell to save her life. So, many times I would hear shouted across the room "Hey Elana! How do you spell *blank*?" And of course I would then shout back to her exactly how to spell it.

We didn't have neat computer programs back then to help with learning, so I'm really excited to use them to help my children when they need it. With SpellQuizzer, kids can learn their spelling words easily and painlessly. The child will first hear the word that needs to be spelled and then will hear that word used in a sentence. For example: "Dog...The dog chewed on a bone." This way if a word comes up that could have more than one spelling/meaning (like there, their and they're), the child knows which one the program is looking for.

This spelling software comes with sample word lists for grades 1 through 6, but you can download word lists from their website or create your own word lists quickly and easily. This is especially helpful because most teachers will give children a word list for that week or month, and you can make sure your child is learning just the words he or she needs to at that point. You do need to have a microphone attached to your computer in order to record the audio, but many computers come with one build in nowadays. Check out the video demonstrations to learn more about how the program works. If you're homeschooling spelling, I highly recommend taking a look at the special spelling software just for you!

You can find out more about SpellQuizzer on their website, Facebook and Twitter pages.
My Take
I had fun testing out the software. First, I tried taking the 1st grade word list quiz. It was super easy to figure out how to use the program, and I'm sure any 6-year-old would be able to take the quiz with some help from a parent. Then, I tried creating my own word list. This was so simple!

One thing that's really neat is that SpellQuizzer's built-in spellchecker recognizes both US and UK English spellings. Also, the spellchecker warns the user when creating a spelling list if they enter a word that appears to be spelled incorrectly. So, when my kids are old enough, I can let them create their own spelling lists without worrying that they're learning a wrong spelling.

Cost: You can buy SpellQuizzer for $29.95. ($$$$)

Overall: We give SpellQuizzer a 9.5/10!

We were given a SpellQuizzer software license free of charge for the sole purpose of this review; no other compensation was received. All opinions expressed are my own.

This is a Mama Buzz review. The product was provided by TedCo Software for this review.