By Serenson Pty Ltd
1. Effectiveness
(a) How Ultimate Spelling Improves Your Spelling
The main test of any spelling software is, of course, whether the software improves your spelling. The extent which the Ultimate Spelling software improves your spelling depends a lot on how you use the software. Look closely at the software's features, and you will find a simple yet powerful tool that you can use to practice your own spelling or use as a tool for tutoring someone else in spelling, such as your son or daughter, or a student. Here is how Ultimate Spelling works.
Ultimate Spelling comes with a set of inbuilt lists of words. The lists comprise 10 Grades with 10 levels, with each level having around 50 words to practice. This amounts to around 5,000 words. The levels start with very simple words (words such as “all”, “also”, “any”) and progress to moderately difficult words (words such as “abdicate”, “abjure”, “acclimate”).
The main techniques that Ultimate Spelling uses to improve your spelling are repetition and elaboration. You start by reading about the word in your spelling list, including the word’s definition and sample sentences. Then you progress to flash cards (called Dictation Cards in Ultimate Spelling), which show you the word you are studying and which flip around to reveal the word’s meaning.
Ultimate Spelling's main tools for improving your spelling are the Spelling Drills. There are three spelling drills in Ultimate Spelling: Fusion Drill, By Definition, and By Sound. These spelling drills select a word at random from your chosen spelling list. You are then asked to type the correct spelling of the word.
The By Definition drill displays a definition of a word. You must then spell correctly the word that matches that definition. The By Sound drill provides the audio pronunciation of a word, without the definition. You must type the correct spelling of the word you hear.
The Fusion Drill combines the By Definition drill and the By Sound drill. That is, the Fusion Drill shows you the definition of a word from your spelling list accompanied by an audio pronunciation of that word. You are then required to type the correct spelling of the word.
For any word in the spelling list, you can quickly add a picture that illustrates the meaning of that word. This is useful for people who learn visually, who require pictures in order to remember the word's meaning. Just select a word from your chosen spelling list, press “Click to add image”, and immediately you are presented with a gallery of images associated with that word from Google Images. Select the image you like, and you automatically have a visual reminder of the word’s meaning attached to the word’s information file.
Ultimate Spelling keeps users further engaged through a novel Word Messenger option. Turn this option on, put Ultimate Spelling into Word Messenger Mode, and you will be reminded at random times throughout the day of the spelling and definition of words from your words lists.
Other methods of elaboration that Ultimate Spelling uses includes a Rhyme tool, which links to an online database of words that rhyme with the word in your spelling list, and Word Explorer, which lets you explore synonyms for your word.
Another useful feature is your ability to quickly remove a word that you have already mastered from the spelling list. When you feel you know how to spell a word, just click “Mastered” so that you are no longer tested on that word.
As with all good educational software, Ultimate Spelling comes with reporting tools that track your progress. Usefully, you can add multiple user profiles to the software. This means you can easily track the progress of, say, your son’s spelling improvement, and also track the progress of your daughter’s spelling separately.
The real power of Ultimate Spelling comes from the Create List function. Using this function, you can easily compile your own list of words to practice. Just type a word and press “Lookup”. In one click of the mouse, you have added the word, its definition, usage examples, and pronunciation to your custom list of spelling words.
Automatically, your words are added to the flash cards, the Fusion Drill, the By Definition drill, and the By Sound drill. You can add images to the word just as you can with the inbuilt spelling lists. This is a highly useful tool for a teacher who wants to educate and test students on a custom, class spelling list. The feature would also help students preparing for spelling bees and spelling tests.
(b) Room For Improvement
Helpfully, Ultimate Spelling comes with audio pronunciation of words from a real-life person, a female voice artist. But, sometimes, it is hard to make-out the word that is spoken. It might be useful to include a “Replay” button that repeats the pronunciation of the word. Currently, if you miss hearing the word properly the first time using the “By Sound” drill, you do not get a second chance at hearing the word. (Then again, you would be able to have a good guess at the word since you would presumably know the words on your spelling list.)
We could also envisage situations where the accent of the voice artist, which sounds British, would make it difficult for people used to other pronunciations. But such problems would arise in only a small number of examples, where, for example, British and American pronunciation differs. On the other hand, we were impressed that Ultimate Spelling includes both American and British pronunciations of certain words, such as aluminum-aluminium.
Perhaps Ultimate Spelling might also add more variety in the spelling drills that come with the software, such as some fun word games.
2. Usability
Ultimate Spelling is user-friendly. The software uses familiar Windows point-and-click technology. The software uses black text on a white background, which makes reading onscreen easy. The graphical user interface is simple and tidy.
3. Teaching Approach and Engagement
Ultimate Spelling uses a combination of auditory, visual, and kinesthetic teaching styles. There is audio pronunciation of words for auditory learners. The ability to quickly add pictures to words will help visual learners. And having to type the correct spelling should assist kinaesthetic learners. The Rhymes, Word Explorer, Word Messenger, and especially the “Mastered” option, also help in engaging the learner.
4. Performance and Reliability
We experienced a few minor performance issues. The software’s web links to usage examples and the Kids Dictionary were unavailable, returning a "404 Page Not Found error". Evidently, these web resources are out-of-date. However, you can fix this problem quite easily by following the instructions in the "Edit Word Discover Resources".
We also had an "Ultimate Spelling encountered a problem and had to close" error, but this may have had more to do with our local PC settings than a problem with the software itself. In any event, the software worked fine again on restart and we have not experienced the error since.
We initially had a problem downloading the software, but this problem was quickly rectified by Ultimate Spelling's help desk (see further, below, Support).
5. Tailorability
Tailorability is one of Ultimate Spelling's strengths. The ability to create your own spelling lists, quickly and easily, is probably Ultimate Spelling's biggest selling point. The software can also track the progress of multiple users.
6. Cost and Pricing
Ultimate Spelling sells for US $59.95, which is about standard for spelling education software. Compared to other forms of spelling instruction, such as private tuition and special spelling classes, spelling software represents good value.
7. Support
Ultimate Spelling has a help desk that uses a ticket-submit system. They have a guaranteed response time of 24 hours and state that they always resolve technical issues, without exception. When we used Ultimate Spelling's technical support, we received a response within the hour and the problem was resolved quickly and painlessly.
Ultimate Spelling comes with a Help file. To get the most out of Ultimate Spelling from the get-go, we recommend that you read the "Quick Start Guide" under the software’s Help menu, or else you might overlook some of the software's most important features.
The Help file is written in clear language and it is reasonably comprehensive. There were some features listed in the Help File that we could not see in the software itself; this may have been an oversight in carrying-over parts of the Help file for the sister product, Ultimate Vocabulary. We found a small typo in the Help menu item called “Activiry Options”.
8. How To Trial/Guarantee
Ultimate Spelling comes with a 90-day guarantee, which is more than you get with most other spelling software. If Ultimate Spelling does not meet your needs, then discontinue the program within 90 days of purchase and contact Ultimate Spelling for a refund.
9. Availability
Ultimate Spelling comes as an instant download. It is compatible with Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7.
Declaration
We, Serenson Pty Ltd, declare that we:
- have tried and tested Ultimate Spelling for ourselves;
- have set-out the criteria against which we have tested Ultimate Spelling (above);
- have based the review on how well Ultimate Spelling meets those criteria, based as much as is reasonably possible on facts and experiences rather than opinions;
- are happy to recommend Ultimate Spelling;
- encourage readers of this review, including the software vendor, to contact us with comments and corrections;
- disclose that Ultimate Spelling has an affiliate program; and
- disclose that, because of the positive results of our tests, we have decided to participate in the affiliate program, which means we receive a commission for some sales of Ultimate Spelling made through a link on the Write Better English website.
*Serenson Pty Ltd receives a commission from some sales of Ultimate Spelling, which is software owned and sold by a company called eReflect Software.