This morning I received an email from a reader who was looking for some recommendations for websites that her students can use to learn and practice new vocabulary words. I have made a couple of lists on this topic in the past but it’s been a while since I updated them and a couple of the items in those lists have gone offline. Therefore, I put together a new list of the websites that I recommend.
Professor Word is a service that can help students learn new SAT and ACT vocabulary words. Professor Word operates as a browser bookmarklet in Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Safari. When you’re reading a webpage click on the Professor Word bookmarklet to quickly identify SAT and ACT vocabulary words on that page. You can also use Professor Word to get definitions for any unfamiliar word on a webpage. To get a definition just highlight the word a small dialogue box containing the definition will appear.
Vocabulary Spelling City
offers a database of more than 42,000 spelling words and sentences. The
words and sentences can be customized for your students. This means
that Vocabulary Spelling City supports US and UK spellings of words like
“favorite” and “favourite,” “color” and “colour.” Teachers can use
Vocabulary Spelling City to create custom lists of words for their
students to practice spelling and to study the definitions of those
words. To help students learn the proper pronunciation of the words on their practice lists Vocabulary Spelling City
provides clear, spoken recordings of every word. Students can play
games, study words, and quiz themselves on the spellings of the words on
their lists. Vocabulary Spelling City allows teachers to print
activities for use in their classrooms when their students don’t have
access to computers.
Wordia is a service that offers features videos of people (students and teachers) explaining and demonstrating the meaning of words. Wordia offers games based on the words in the word lists developed by Wordia staff and the lists developed by teachers and students. Students and teachers have the option to create their own word lists and create their own games based on those lists.
Knoword is a fun and challenging game that tests your ability to match definitions to words. Knoword is played like this; you’re presented with the first letter of a word, its part of speech, and the definition. You then have to fill in the correct spelling of the word. If you enter the correct word, you earn points. If you don’t get it right, you lose points. You don’t have to register to play Knoword, but you can register if you want. Registering for Knoword gives you the option to keep track of your game statistics. Registered users can also earn badges based on their performances.
Vocab Ahead offers online study rooms in which students can take practice vocabulary quizzes. The quizzes provide instant feedback on each question as well as summary information at the end of the quiz. While taking the quiz if a student is stuck on an item he or she can click on the hint tab. Vocab Ahead also offers video demonstrations of SAT vocabulary words. Teachers can create their own custom video playlists and place them into playlist widgets.
Disclosure: VocabularySpelling City is an advertiser on Free Technology for Teachers.
