See-N-Spell Can Help a Struggling Speller

When I received this See-N-Spell Quick Reference Guide to review I was really looking forward to giving it a try. The company included a letter in their packet to me and in it they stated:

All people have larger verbal social language vocabulary than they do written academic language vocabulary. When writing, writers often misspell or, to avoid misspelling, choose simpler words that do not clearly express their thoughts or develop their language skills. A common trait of these struggling spellers/writers is that they "trade down" to simpler words to avoid mistakes, thus limiting the growth of their academic vocabulary. 

I sat the letter down and wondered if Dr. Sylvia Smith (the person who wrote the letter I quoted above) knew my son! My son can read just about anything you put in front of him and he has an extensive vocabulary. However, when it comes to spelling, he is struggling. My son is a perfectionist, so instead of using a stronger and more difficult word to spell when writing he will "trade down" his words for a word he knows how to spell. I will be honest with you - it has taken persistence on my part to get this child of mine to actually use this guide. But once he has seen the help it is to him - I have caught him looking through it on his own. 

See-N-Spell is arranged alphabetically and  helps writers to...

• Find correct spelling for more than 300 commonly used words.
• Find the correct spelling for homophones (words that sound alike but are spelled differently).
• Identify the part of speech these words are so they can be used correctly.
• Quickly verify the correct spelling of common misspelled words.

See-N-Spell is divided into three alphabetized sections:

1) Most Commonly Used Vocabulary Words

2) Most Commonly Misspelled Words

3) My Special Interest Words

When I first received this I did wonder why this product would be better than simply having my child use a dictionary to look up spelling words? I believe dictionary skills are skills we should still teach our children, but when your child is struggling with spelling, the last thing he wants to do is get a HUGE intimidating book from the shelf and try to find the one word he needs. This guide is not intimidating and it does teach alphabetizing skills. Is every possible word included in this 40-page guide? Of course not, but there is additional space in the back to add your own "special interest words." One word we have already added is turtle. For some reason, my son keeps forgetting the letter e at the end of that word. 

Pricing and Ordering Information:

See-N-Spell Quick Reference Guide is designed for 4th graders and up. This resource costs $9.99 and includes a FREE See-N-Read Reading Tool (see the photo below).  Click here for more ordering information. 

Visit the TOS Crew's blog to read more reviews on this product.

Disclaimer: I received this product free for review purposes only. All opinions are my own.