About Spelling Bee Practice
A free, no-sign-in practice tool for students getting ready for a school, district, or county spelling bee.
Most bee preparation comes down to the same loop: hear a word, ask what it means, spell it, find out whether you were right. Doing that at home usually means a parent reading from a PDF for an hour. This app runs that loop on its own so a student can practice independently, at their own pace, as many times as they want.
How it works
- Pick a level — Grades 4–6 or Grades 7–9.
- Pick a word source — the official practice list only, or the official list plus several hundred extra words at the same difficulty for students who have already worked through the official one.
- Pick how many words — 50 to 100 at random, a numbered range in order (so you can work through a long list across several sittings), or the entire list.
- Practice — the app reads each word aloud, just as a spell master would. Buttons give you the definition, an example sentence, or a slower reading. Type the spelling, or tap the microphone and say the letters one at a time.
- Review — after each word you see whether you were right, with the letters you missed marked. At the end you get your score, your time, and a list of the words to practice again, with a replay button on each.
Where the words come from
The official lists are the San Joaquin County Office of Education spelling bee practice lists for grades 4–6 and grades 7–9 — 1,156 and 642 words respectively. County bees typically draw their early rounds directly from these lists. The extra words are a curated set at comparable difficulty, chosen to broaden practice once the official list feels familiar. Definitions are built into the app, so they work without an internet connection.
This site is an independent study aid. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or produced by the San Joaquin County Office of Education or Scripps National Spelling Bee.
Things worth knowing
- No account, ever. There is nothing to sign up for and nothing is stored about you. Scores live on the screen for the current session and disappear when you leave.
- Works offline. After the first visit the whole app, definitions included, is saved to your device. Add it to your home screen and it opens like an app.
- Voices vary by device. The app uses your browser's built-in speech. If it is silent, pick a different voice on the setup screen — there is also an online voice option that works when the built-in ones do not.
- The microphone is optional. Speaking the letters is convenient but never required; typing works everywhere.
Tips for practising
- Ask for the definition before spelling. Knowing the root of a word is often what tells you whether it ends -ence or -ance.
- Use the "in order" mode with a starting number to work through the official list in chunks of 50 across a week.
- At the end, run "Practice missed words" straight away, then again the next day. The misses are where the gains are.
- Closer to the bee, switch to the official list only — that is where the early rounds come from.
Who made this
Built by [YOUR NAME] as a personal project, after watching how much of bee preparation is just reading words off a list out loud. It is free, and there is no catch.
Questions, corrections, or a word list you would like added: [your@email.com]