Using Spellzone Word Lists as Part of Your Exam Preparation
Have you got exams in the upcoming weeks? We’ve compiled a list of our favourite tips to help you make sure that spelling mistakes don’t lose you easy marks. Remember these marks might end up making the difference between one grade or another.
Our word list feature is a great way to adapt Spellzone to suit your needs. While we already have a huge collection of existing word lists – in a wide array of subjects – the best way to make sure you’re practising the vocabulary most relevant to your subject is to create a list of your own.
How to create your own word list:
- To create your own word list, and to take any of our spelling test or play any of our spelling games, you will need to be logged into your Spellzone account. If your school or library do not already have Spellzone, you can sign up for a single user or family/home school subscription here.
- Once you’ve logged in, click on the ‘Word Lists’ tab on the toolbar at the top of your screen (it’s the third one along). This will take to you the Word Lists homepage. You can also access this page by clicking here.
- At the top of the Word Lists homepage, you will see a toolbar showing the various list categories. Click on the ‘Create Word List’ tab (the last one on the toolbar, on the far right of your screen).
- In the appropriate boxes fill in the title of your list, an optional description of the list, and the words you would like to include.
Things to remember:
- You can only include up to 20 words per list.
- Each word must be spelt correctly (you don’t want to learn the wrong spelling!).
- Each word must appear in the Spellzone dictionary. This means there are some types of words you won’t be able to include, such as proper nouns (names) or hyphenated words. If there are any words you feel would be useful in a word list, but which do not appear in our dictionary, please let us know here and we’ll do our best to help. For example: to benefit our English Literature students, we’ve created lists featuring the names of the characters in commonly-taught Shakespeare plays:
- Below the ‘Words’ box, there is a small check box asking if you would like to make your list public. Please check the box if you feel like your list would be beneficial to other Spellzone users.
- There is also the option to save your new list in a particular folder. This tool is handy for sorting your word lists by subject.
- Click ‘Submit’.
- You will now be given the option to add example sentences for each of your words. If another user has already created an example sentence for your word, you will be given the option to use this existing sentence or create a new one.
Watch out: If there is a pre-existing example sentence, make sure it’s using your word in the correct context. If your word is ‘ball’ and you’re referring to a dance, make sure the example sentence isn’t ‘Tom and Harry kicked the ball back and forth.’
- When you’re ready, click ‘Save’. Your word list will be available for you (and any other users registered to your licence) immediately, but it may take up to 30 minutes for it to appear to the public. Click on the ‘eye’ icon at the top of each list to take a ‘Look, Say, Cover, Write, Check’ test; the ‘ear’ icon to take a ‘Listen and Spell’ test; and the ‘football’ icon to play games using your words.
- From now on your list will appear on the Word Lists homepage each time you log in. Browse other list categories by using the toolbar at the top of the page, and search for lists containing a particular word by typing the word into the box on the right-hand of the screen (‘Search word lists’) and clicking ‘Search’. Click here to see the 100 most popular word lists over the last 24 hours.
Step-by-step guides can be found here.
Have a great week!
11 May 2015
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