Best Spelling Programs and Apps for Kids

A spelling app is worth having if it does four things: teaches sounds-to-letters rather than only testing recall, says each sound aloud, lets you add your own words, and makes your child build the word instead of picking it from four options. Most apps sold as spelling apps do the last one, which is the easiest to build and the least useful.

The honest caveat first, because it changes what you should buy: no app teaches a child to spell on its own. The best result comes from pairing one with five minutes of dictation from a person. If you only have the app, you have the part that drills and not the part that teaches.

This page compares options for 5 to 7 year olds. We make one of them, so the criteria come first and we are graded against them like everything else.

What should a spelling app or program have?

These seven are the criteria the rest of this page sorts on, in the order they matter for a 5 to 7 year old.

What to check	Why it matters	What good looks like
Teaches encoding, not just recall	Spelling is building a word from its sounds. An app that only tests recognition is a quiz, not a teacher	Your child types or builds the word letter by letter
Says the sounds aloud	A child cannot map a sound to a letter without hearing it said the same way every time	Per-sound audio, not just the whole word read out
You can add your own words	The list your school sends is the one your child is tested on	A parent can create a list, ideally with audio
Builds rather than picks	Choosing from four options can be done by elimination, with no spelling involved	Free letter entry or letter tiles
Adapts to what your child misses	Re-practising words already known is time your child will not give you twice	Missed words come back; known ones drop away
Shows patterns, not just scores	“Wrong on 6 of 20” tells you nothing to act on	Reports group errors by pattern
No ads, and a real privacy policy	This is a child using it alone	No third-party ads; a policy that says what is collected

The one to check first is adding your own words, because it is the difference between an app that helps with Friday’s test and one that runs a parallel curriculum your child does not have time for.

The first two criteria are not preferences. Reading researcher Linnea Ehri’s work on orthographic mapping describes spelling memory as letter-sound connections bonded through use, which is why an app that only asks your child to recognize the right answer is not building the thing it claims to build. And the National Reading Panel found in 2000 that it is systematic phonics instruction, taught in a planned order, that improves spelling. An app that drills a random word list is missing the part that did the work.

The picks

Five options, graded against the seven criteria above.

How five spelling apps meet the seven criteria

What to check	Wonster Wordsour app	Squeebles Spelling Connect	ABCmouse	Starfall	Khan Academy Kids
Teaches encoding, not just recall	Yes	Partly	Partly	Yes	Partly
Says the sounds aloud	Yes	A little	Not stated on the vendor's site	Not stated on the vendor's site	Not stated on the vendor's site
You can add your own words	Yes	Yes	No	A little	No
Builds rather than picks	Yes	Not stated on the vendor's site	Partly	Yes	Partly
Adapts to what your child misses	A little	Yes	A little	A little	A little
Shows patterns, not just scores	Partly	A little	Not stated on the vendor's site	No	Not stated on the vendor's site
No ads, and a real privacy policy	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes

Wonster Words: best for a child whose school sends a weekly list home

Our own app, built to teach spelling as a subject in its own right, in American English: American-English audio and US spellings. Each spelling lesson teaches one rule, and shows your child the letter pattern behind it. The FLOSS rule gets four lessons of its own, one each for ss, ff, ll and zz, and there are separate lessons for ck versus c, tch versus ch, dge versus ge, soft c, soft g, the s that sounds like z, qu, and the rule that English words do not end in i, v or j. That is 14 rule lessons from pre-K to second grade, plus five on letter reversals such as b and d. Our spelling rules guide explains the rules themselves and when each one usually arrives.

How it measures up against the seven criteria:

• Teaches encoding, and builds rather than picks. In its spelling game your child hears the word and a sentence using it, then types it letter by letter on an on-screen keyboard. Other games have them build the word from letter tiles.
• You can add your own words. Type in your child’s list and the games are built from those words, with audio for each one. It can also email you a printable practice sheet made from the same list.
• Says the sounds aloud. It is built around it: as a word comes together, your child hears each sound on its own, not just the finished word read out.
• Shows the patterns, in the game. The rule lessons build words from sound units rather than single letters, so a pattern like ff in fluff moves as one tile, and the gaps your child fills are the letters the rule decides. The pattern behind each rule is in front of your child every time they spell.
• No ads, and a privacy policy that says your data is never sold.
• Where it falls short: it adapts only a little. After each round it shows your child the words they missed and offers the round again, but it does not yet bring back just the missed words or carry them into the next session. And the parent report shows time and overall accuracy, not which patterns your child is missing: the patterns live in the game, not yet in the report.

For a weekly spelling test in first, second or third grade, this is the part to try. Type in Monday’s list and every practice session that week runs on exactly the words your child will be tested on. Words need to be in the app’s dictionary, so an unusual name may not go in.

Try it free for 7 days. That is long enough to run one full week’s list through it before a test and see whether your child will actually use it, before you are charged anything. After the trial it is $10.99/mo or $59.99/yr. No ads, ages 2-8.

Squeebles Spelling Connect: best for a parent who wants to record the words themselves

The most spelling-focused option here after ours, and the only one where you can record your own audio for every word. Their own site puts it plainly: “Create your own custom spelling lists with the exact words you want your children need to practise. Record your own audio for each word, or choose from the 8500+ words we already have audio recorded for.”

It also does the adapting row properly: its Tricky Words test is built from the words your child has previously spelled wrong, so the misses come back.

The qualifier that matters for a US family: it is built to the English National Curriculum and the UK’s “Letters and Sounds” phonics programme, and its 160+ built-in lists follow that sequence. If you are using your own list that is irrelevant, and if you were hoping the built-in lists would match a US scope and sequence, they will not.

Level 1 is aimed at ages 5 to 7. Audio recording works on iOS and Android but not in the web version.

£2.99/mo or £29.99/yr for up to four children, 7-day trial, no ads. Priced in pounds.

ABCmouse: best for one subscription covering many subjects

The broadest option, and spelling is genuinely in there rather than implied: its own first-grade path covers high-frequency words, consonant blends and digraphs, compound words, prefixes and suffixes, through a Learn, Practice, Apply and Reinforce cycle.

Where it falls short: spelling sits inside the reading path rather than standing on its own, and you cannot add your own words. For a parent whose actual problem is Friday’s list, that is the whole ballgame. There is a free basic tier worth trying first.

$14.99/mo or $59.99/yr, 30-day trial on the web, no ads, ages 2-8. Its website often advertises $45 for a year, and some of those plans renew at $59.99, so check the renewal price before you count on the lower figure.

Starfall: best as an affordable phonics supplement, if spelling is not the main goal

Long-established, affordable, and genuinely liked. It does have a spelling game: Spelling Composer, a first-grade activity with sets of -ing, -er and ow words plus seasonal sets, where your child types each word on a keyboard. Starfall’s own words for it: “Kids will learn to spell through exciting games using either a keyboard or a mouse.”

Where it falls short: the word sets are Starfall’s, so it cannot practise Friday’s list. The only place Starfall takes your own words is its printable worksheet generators. And it tracks nothing, on purpose. Its help center says plainly that “individualized tracking and reports are not provided by Starfall”, so you will not see which words or patterns your child is missing.

Its strength is phonics, and our phonics roundup covers it on the criteria that actually apply to it.

$35/yr, or $5.99/mo through the app stores. No ads, ages 3-8.

Khan Academy Kids: best for spending nothing while you find out if an app helps

Free, well made, no ads, and no catch. It is a general early-learning app, not a spelling app. It covers early literacy, reading, writing, language and math, and reading is one subject among several rather than its focus. Spelling shows up as word-building and writing activities inside a personalized path that moves across subjects, not as a sequence of spelling lessons taught rule by rule. There are no spelling lists and no way to add your own words.

So it will not solve a weekly-list problem, but it is the right first move if you do not yet know whether your child will use an app at all.

Free, ages 2-8.

What can a spelling app not do?

It cannot see your child’s hand. A parent watching a child write notices they formed b as d, or said “buh” while writing, or hesitated before the vowel. An app receives a finished answer and marks it.

It cannot notice a pattern across a week. A person spots that every error this week was the middle vowel. Most apps report the words, not the shape of the errors, which is the thing that tells you what to teach next.

It cannot tell practice from performance. A word spelled right in the app and wrong in your child’s own story has not transferred, and only a person reading that story will see it.

None of that makes an app useless. It makes it the drilling half of the job. The teaching half is five minutes with you, and the app is what keeps the practice going on the evenings that get away from you.

Free versus paid: what free versions leave out

Free spelling apps are usually free because they are narrow, not because they are generous. The three things most often behind the paywall are the ones worth paying for: adding your own word list, progress you can actually read, and removing ads.

Wonster Words is a paid subscription, $10.99 a month or $59.99 a year, and it starts with a 7-day free trial. That is long enough to run one week’s spelling list through it and find out whether your child will use it before you are charged anything.

One genuinely free option is worth trying before you spend anything: play one of the no-prep games for a week to see whether five minutes a day is a habit you can keep. If your child will do that, an app will probably help. If they will not, an app is unlikely to change that.

Which is better, an app or a spelling program?

A program gives you a sequence; an app gives you practice. They are different purchases and the words get used interchangeably in marketing.

A spelling program is a curriculum: patterns in a planned order, usually parent-led, with a scope and sequence you can look at. Buy one if you are teaching spelling yourself and want the order decided for you.

An app is practice on words someone has already chosen, whether that is the app’s sequence or your list. Buy one if the teaching is happening at school and you want the practice to happen at home without a fight.

If a program calls itself phonics-based, the check is whether you can see its scope and sequence before you buy. A real one publishes the order it teaches patterns in. A marketing line does not.

Apps for children who find spelling hard

Look for adjustable pacing, audio on every word, and no timed rounds. A timer converts a child who needs longer into a child who fails, which is the opposite of what a struggling speller needs from practice.

Beyond that, an app is a supplement to whatever a school or specialist has put in place, never a substitute for it. If you are wondering whether your child’s difficulty is more than the usual, that is a conversation with their teacher rather than a feature to shop for.