Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the HOMESCHOOL REVIEW CREW.
I needed a spelling program for F so I was so excited to receive one year access to Spelling Ninja from Reading Kingdom to use with him. Spelling Ninja is an online program geared for students ages 5-10 and they should already be reading before using it (1st grade level and up).
F with his spelling!
Above you can see our dashboard. You can use an on-screen keyboard or a physical keyboard with Spelling Ninja. You can also change the program speed and response time.
F working on his first lesson.
Spelling Ninja is specifically designed to help children look at words and decode them. It specifically helps with visual memory skills that helps them develop improved spelling, reading and writing. This program is based on years of research and rests on writing. This is due to the fact that reading can often be achieved without exactness as children can sometimes end up guessing at a word. However, for a word to be written with accuracy, every letter must be placed in the correct order - this is the concept behind Spelling Ninja. And well, ninjas are fun 😉.
How exactly does this program work? There are 15 different levels within Spelling Ninja. Each level has 10 exercises to be completed. Each exercise gives students a sentence with a picture for them to copy or retype. The program reads this sentence to them and then they look at it and copy it. Sometimes the sentence or some words are visible to them as they type and sometimes not depending on the level they are working on. Students have to make sure to follow writing rules - capitalization, punctuation, etc. There is color coding to help them identify if they are missing a space, a word, punctuation, etc. Students are given a certain amount of time to complete the words and sentence. If they make a mistake they are shown that. If they take too long to complete the exercise, they will have to repeat it until they master it.
You can see above that F was currently working on Level 13 when I took this screenshot. You can see what levels he has finished and how he performed - needs attention, good performance, very good performance or excellent performance.
Here is an example of the first exercise in Level 1.
F working on this lesson. You can see the words and then they disappear right before you need to type them.
As you move through this program and the different levels, the sentences become more and more challenging.
Here is the first exercise in Level 15.
Everything is blank in this more difficult level and you have to remember the complete sentence from memory.
After your session, you will see a dancing ninja that will tell you how well you did.
As you see, Spelling Ninja improves your spelling by having you write the sentences from memory. This took a little adapting to for F as he didn't really didn't type much
before this program. So at the beginning, he not only had to think
about the spelling but where to find the letters and all the writing rules as well. It was a bit
frustrating for his first few lessons but I will say that he adapted
well and really got the hang of it. His scores starting improving and he has made his way through all 15 levels now. I love that he can continue to practice his reading, writing, typing and spelling with Spelling Ninja. And I know that when he does begin a typing program he should be way ahead of
the curve as well!
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