Word Sort Software

Word Search Game
Another great game from Funbrain.com.  This game allows students to play against the computer or to make up their own word search to print and solve on their own. I use it to help practice “No Excuses” words. Like all the Funbrain.com games, the students can select difficulty level. Besides giving your own words to make up a puzzles, this site features several pre-made puzzles related to books such as Harry Potter.

Quiz Lab
When you go to this site you will be asked to sign up for Quiz Lab. Once you sign up (for free) you have instant access to hundreds of quizzes on many subjects. There is a huge section for spelling quizzes. Teachers can create their own quizzes and have students log-in to the web page and take the quiz. Instant feedback answers are an option. Students quiz results are emailed directly to the teacher. The quizzes that are pre-made by other teachers are not all good. The biggest problem with these pre-made quizzes in spelling is that most of them are multiple choice with 4 misspelled words and word correct word. I do not recommend this as a testing method. When you create a spelling quiz it’s better to have only one word spelled incorrectly so students do not have excess visual exposure to incorrectly spelled words. This quiz-maker web-site has endless opportunities for creating custom spelling quizzes!

WordCentral.com Dictionary
Merriam-Webster Dictionaries have been a basic learning tool in our classrooms for years. Now, you can have the same quality you’re used to in an on-line version with this powerful and engaging web-site. Among its powerful features you will find:  a Student Dictionary  with all of the features of the paper version and more. A nice feature of the student dictionary is that it includes word histories for many words. There is a  Build Your Own Dictionary section that allows students to create their own personal dictionary. There is a Daily Buzzword section to introduce a word a day. My students particularly enjoy the Coding Chamber and English Experiments located on the “second floor”. Take some time to just explore all that this award-winning site has to offer.

A Feast of Homonyms
Four homonym games wrapped in one website. Matching, Word Search, Flash Cards and Concentration are the four games/activities found at this web site. Homonyms are relevant for students at Within Word Pattern through Derivational Relations. The layout of these games is appealing and motivating as it keeps track of your score!

Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee Home Page
Their purpose “is to help students improve their spelling, increase their vocabularies, learn concepts, and develop correct English usage that will help them all their lives.”

Word-A-Day List Serve
The music and magic of words -- that's what A.Word.A.Day is all about. This is the Web site for the mailing list A.Word.A.Day (AWAD), which sends a vocabulary word and its definition to the subscribers every day. Currently, AWAD is subscribed to by over 384,000 linguaphiles in more than 195 countries. You too can subscribe to the list to receive it daily in your mailbox. Subscription is free. If you subscribe you will find interesting facts about words arriving daily in your email. I have found it most useful part of this daily email is that the words are delivered based on a weekly theme. For example, one week all the words were “coined” words. This “theme” makes for very intriguing word study discussion with students at the derivational relations stage!

Kids Jumble
An excellent site for student’s to explore word play. By unscrambling letters, against the clock, students are able to apply knowledge of letters and patterns. When students unscramble words they apply their ever-growing knowledge of English orthography. By seeing the letters: hredat students can apply the knowledge of which letters are more or less likely to occur in sequence. They say things like, “Words never begin with dh or rh, but I’ve seen thr.”

Internet Anagram Server
Did you know that parliament is an anagram of partial men? Or, Clint Eastwood an anagram of Old West Action? Someone once said, "All the life's wisdom can be found in anagrams. Anagrams never lie." Here is your chance to discover the wisdom of anagrams. Enter the word or phrase in the form on this site. Press the button and your word turns into an anagram.