Scientifically validated as a highly effective approach to improving spelling skills through our phonics approach, a published study revealed that students demonstrated an average spelling improvement of 1.9 grades among children in a classroom setting who regularly used Simplex Spelling over a 18 week period. The largest student improvement observed over the same time period was 4.4 grade levels as assessed by administering the Schonell Spelling Test.
Linda Chmiliar, "Improving the Spelling Skills of Students with Learning Disabilities using Apps on the iPad", International Journal of Technology and Inclusive Education, pp. 962-971. Special Issue Volume 3, 2016.
Simplex Spelling Phonics 1 teaches a full year of spelling curriculum with over 450 high frequency words divided into 42 lists that are organized by spelling patterns and difficulty levels. Each of the 42 lists comes with a lesson that teaches one of the basic building blocks of spelling in the English language. These basic building blocks include the different phonograms, sounds, and spelling rules.
Our spelling lists focus on some of the highest frequency words in the English language to help students establish a base foundation of literacy and confidence with spelling and reading.
Students learn a new concept for each lesson building on the skills learned from previous lessons. Simplex Spelling Phonics 1 guides the student and acts as a personal spelling coach with every word, while teaching "how to spell" English words.
Memorization may be sufficient to pass a spelling test, but it often does not transfer into good long term reading and spelling skills. Our goal with Simplex Spelling Phonics 1 is to not only teach a list of words, but to teach students “how to spell” these words, thus building long term skills that can be used for over 84% of the words in the English language that follow phonetic patterns.
Many studies show that students who learn to read through phonics have a higher level of literacy than students who learn to read by using flash cards and the whole word approach. Also, that not all readers are good spellers, but almost all good spellers are also good readers. This is why Simplex Spelling's comprehensive unique phonics approach to spelling really works to create both better spellers and better readers.
Note: Now supports both North American and British accents.
Note: You can not create your own spelling lists.
Features:
- Over 450 high frequency words to help build literacy.
- A starting assessment/placement test.
- Review lists.
- 42 instructional lessons teach phonics, phonograms, and spelling rules.
- A full “reverse phonics” approach that includes sounds made by all the different letter combinations.
- Contextually relevant spelling rule hints that help explain “how to spell” English words.
- Letter by letter feedback system provides immediate feedback.
- Guaranteed success on every word.
- Support for 40 user accounts.
- Export and email student progress reports.
- Remembers each user’s progress in every list.
- User stats screen to see mastered words and words that require further practice.
- Supports both upper and lower case letters.
- Supports both alphabetic and QWERTY keyboard layouts.
- Supports US, UK and Canadian English spelling of words.
- Featured previously by Apple in New & Noteworthy, What's Hot, Words for the Wise and Spelling & Grammar.
- Placed 3rd in the 2012 Best App Ever Awards - Best Elementary Student App.
- Honorable mention in the 2012 Best App Ever Awards - Best Special Needs App.
- AppsforHomeschooling (5/5, Golden App Award, 2011 Readers Choice Award)
- Academics' Choice Award
- Parents' Choice Award
Privacy Disclosure:
- No 3rd party ads
- Does not share any data
- No In-App purchases
- No links to social media
- Contains child protected links to a kid safe version of the developer's website, email support and to rate the app.
COPPA Compliant
Show less
What's New in Simplex Spelling Phonics 1
4.1.0
October 10, 2019
Updated for iOS 13.1
Fixed screen layout issues on some newer iPhone models running iOS 13.1.
If you type a letter in incorrectly, but then immediately correct it and type the word correctly and it checks it, it says great or flawless, but then at the end marks it as a missed word even though it was spelled correctly. The child has to be hyper vigilant to never accidentally hit the wrong letter and be perfect even though they know the word. This is not an app I would recommend for children with dyslexia as they sometimes don’t catch the letters they turn around until they type them and need to correct them. Either developers need to change it so the submitted spelled word is evaluated only or this is not a good app and will promote confusion and frustration because the child did in fact spell it correctly but it wasn’t counted.
Show less
Response from developer
Thank you for your response and feedback!
Simplex Spelling does present students instant feedback when typing. The benefit of the instant feedback is that the student knows instantly when he or she makes a mistake. However, if you believe the end of list scoring may discourage one of your students, the scoring can be easily turned off on the lesson box at the beginning of each lesson.
Simplex Spelling does provide the exact type of approach you recommend in the review and assessment lists. Since those modes turn off the letter by letter feedback and use a submission approach instead. The approach in the review and assessment lists gives the student the ability to correct typos before submitting words and provides a more accurate indication of their mastered level.
We're sorry to hear that you've decided not to recommend Simplex Spelling for children with dyslexia. As a research study has validated Simplex Spelling as being highly effective in a classroom setting for students with learning disabilities. We've also received feedback from many educators relating how well they've found our apps have worked for their students with dyslexia and other learning disabilities. A number of improvements have been added to our apps, based specifically on feedback from educators working with students with special needs. We’ve taken great care with the details, right down to the custom font our app uses that provides visual differences between often confused letters.
We’re sorry to hear that you don't feel that Simplex Spelling will meet your needs. We’d recommend still trying it with your students. Hopefully you’ll be pleasantly surprised with the results.
Wishing you all the best.
Craig.
