How the Spelling Test Maker Works
- Enter the list. Type the words exactly as they appear on the school sheet, or copy and paste them. One word or phrase per line works best. If the list has numbers in front of each word, leave them in: they are stripped out for you.
- Pick the language. This tells your device which voice to use. Choose English (UK / Singapore) for British spellings such as colour and favourite, or English (US) for American ones.
- Choose a way to practise. Start the spoken test, flip through flashcards, or preview and print a worksheet. You can switch between them at any time without re-entering the list.
Press Save this list to keep it on this device for next time, or Copy share link to send the list to another parent, a grandparent or a tutor. The link contains the words themselves, so whoever opens it sees the same list straight away.
Three Ways to Practise the Same List
| Mode | What your child does | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Online test | Hears each word, types it, and sees the correct spelling with any wrong letters highlighted. Ends with a score and a retry round for missed words. | Independent practice, and a quick check the night before the real test |
| Flashcards | Sees each word large on screen, taps to hear it, and steps through the list. Hide-the-word mode turns the cards into a say-it-then-check game. | The first day a new list comes home, and younger children who are still reading the words |
| Printable worksheet | Writes the words by hand in a dictation sheet, a look–cover–write–check table, missing-letter puzzles and a word search. | Handwriting practice, travel, and schools that test spelling on paper |
Why a Spoken Test Beats Copying the List
Copying a word out five times feels productive, but the child never has to pull the spelling out of memory: the word is right there on the page. Spelling tests at school work differently. The teacher says the word and the child must recall every letter unaided. Practice that matches the test is the practice that sticks.
The online test reproduces that recall step. The word is spoken, never shown, so your child has to build it from memory. Feedback arrives the moment they press Check, while the attempt is still fresh, and the letters they got wrong are highlighted so they can see exactly where the word went off track. A child who writes freind sees that the i and e are swapped, rather than a bare cross.
Retrying only the missed words matters too. A list of fifteen words usually has three or four genuinely hard ones. Running the full list again and again spends most of the time on words the child already knows. The retry round puts the effort where it is needed.
A Weekly Spelling Routine That Fits a School Week
Short, spaced sessions beat one long session the night before. Ten minutes a day across the week is enough for most lists.
| Day | Activity | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Day 1 (list comes home) | Enter the list and save it. Read through the flashcards together and talk about any tricky parts: silent letters, double consonants, unusual vowel spellings. | 10 min |
| Day 2 | Print the worksheet. Do the look–cover–write–check table and the missing-letter puzzles. | 10–15 min |
| Day 3 | First online test with “show each word first” switched on. Retry the missed words. | 10 min |
| Day 4 | Online test with the word hidden, exactly like the real thing. Retry the missed words. | 10 min |
| Day 5 (night before) | One final online test, or the dictation sheet with you reading the words aloud. Finish with the word search as a reward. | 10 min |
Spelling and Dictation Lists in Singapore and Malaysia
Weekly lists in Singapore and Malaysia often include short phrases rather than single words, such as a flock of birds or in the afternoon, and lower-primary dictation passages sometimes test a whole sentence with its capital letter and full stop. The test handles both. Put each phrase on its own line and it is read and marked as a whole. Switch on Check capital letters & punctuation if your child’s teacher takes marks off for a missing capital or full stop. Leave it off to focus on the letters alone.
Mother Tongue lists work the same way. Choose Bahasa Melayu for an ejaan list, Chinese for tingxie (听写), or Tamil, and the words are read in that language. For Chinese there is also a dedicated tingxie practice page that reads the list from a photo, adds pinyin and prints 田字格 writing boxes. For Chinese and Tamil, children type their answers with the keyboard for that language on their device, or you can use the printed dictation sheet and mark it by hand. The puzzle exercises (missing letters, unscramble, word search) are designed for the Latin alphabet, so they switch off automatically for Chinese and Tamil.
Getting a Clear Voice
The words are spoken by the text-to-speech voices built into your phone, tablet or computer. Nothing is downloaded from us, and the test works offline once the page has loaded. Voice quality varies by device:
- iPhone and iPad include good English voices. Extra languages can be added in Settings → Accessibility → Spoken Content → Voices.
- Android phones use Google’s speech engine, which covers English, Malay, Indonesian, Filipino, Chinese and Tamil. Install a language under Settings → Text-to-speech if it is missing.
- Windows and Mac computers include English voices by default. Other languages can be added from the system’s language or speech settings.
If your device has no voice for the language you picked, a notice appears above the Start button. You can still run the test with “show each word for 3 seconds first” switched on, so the word is shown briefly instead of spoken. Use Say it slowly for longer words where every syllable counts.
Your List Stays on Your Device
This tool runs entirely in your browser. The words you type are not sent to our server, and there is no account to create. Saved lists are kept in your browser’s own storage on this device; clearing your browser data removes them. A share link carries the list in the part of the address after the #, which browsers do not send to the website, so even a shared list never reaches us.
Frequently Asked Questions
Type or paste the list into the box, one word or phrase per line, then choose Online Test, Flashcards or Printable Worksheet. The online test reads each word aloud and your child types the spelling; the worksheet gives you a dictation sheet, missing-letter and word-search exercises with an answer key.
Yes. Put each phrase on its own line, for example “a pair of shoes”. The online test reads the whole phrase and checks the whole phrase. Word searches only use single words, so phrases are listed separately there.
English, Malay, Indonesian, Filipino, Chinese and Tamil. The words are read aloud using the voices installed on your phone or computer, so the voice quality depends on your device. Missing-letter, unscramble and word-search exercises are available for languages written in the Latin alphabet.
No. Your list stays in your own browser. Saved lists are stored on your device only, and the share link carries the list inside the link itself, so nothing is sent to our server.
Yes. There is no account and no limit. Make as many tests and worksheets as you like, every week.