10 Best Spelling Apps for Kids (Updated for 2026)

Your child comes home with 15 words on Monday, a test on Friday, and a teacher who says an app might help. You search, and you find a hundred apps with cartoon animals, star charts and five-star reviews, most of which say nothing about whether a child will still spell "because" correctly in a month. Picking one feels like a guess.

It does not have to be. We looked again at the apps parents ask about most, checked that each one still exists, what it costs in 2026 and what it actually does, and set them against what research says makes spelling practice work. Some apps on last year's version of this list have changed their names, moved behind school licenses, or never existed in the form people hoped. This version fixes that.

You will get ten apps worth considering, grouped roughly by age, with an honest note on who each one suits and where it falls short. Before the list comes a short section on what to look for, because the right app for a five-year-old learning letter sounds is the wrong app for a ten-year-old who keeps writing "wierd".

What actually makes a spelling app work

Three findings from memory research do most of the work, and they are worth knowing before you spend money.

The first is retrieval practice. Pulling a word out of memory strengthens it far more than looking at it again. In a well-known 2006 study, Henry Roediger and Jeffrey Karpicke found that students who tested themselves on a passage remembered much more of it a week later than students who spent the same time rereading it. For spelling, that means an app should make your child produce the word, by typing or building it, rather than pick the right spelling from four options. Recognizing a spelling is easier than producing one, and it is the producing that carries over into real writing.

The second is spacing. Practice spread over several days beats the same amount of practice crammed into one evening. Nicholas Cepeda and colleagues reviewed hundreds of experiments in 2006 and found the effect almost everywhere they looked. A good app brings a word back after a day, then a few days, then a week, rather than drilling it twenty times on Thursday night.

The third is explicit teaching of how words work. Steve Graham and Tanya Santangelo's 2014 meta-analysis found that teaching spelling directly, through sound patterns, word parts and rules, improves spelling and also helps reading and writing. An app that explains why "hopping" has two p's teaches more than one that only marks it wrong.

Games are not the enemy. A child who enjoys practicing will practice more often, and frequency matters. The question to ask of any game is simple: while playing, is my child actually pulling spellings out of memory, or mostly tapping, collecting and watching?

How we chose and grouped the ten

We kept apps that are live in 2026, that focus on spelling or on the phonics that spelling is built on, and that a parent can actually buy or use at home. Prices are what the companies list today. They change often, and several of these apps sell in British pounds, so check before you subscribe. Nobody on this list has paid to be here.

The apps are grouped by stage rather than ranked, because "best" depends on your child. Young children need sound-to-letter work and a lot of play. Children who can already read need practice producing whole words from memory, ideally with the spacing built in. A few apps serve both.

For early learners, roughly ages 3 to 7

Duolingo ABC

Duolingo ABC is a free literacy app from the company behind the language app, aimed at preschool to second grade. It teaches letters, letter sounds, phonics and early sight words through short lessons, tracing, and simple interactive stories. There are no ads and no in-app purchases, and lessons work offline.

Its strength is that it is genuinely free and well built for small hands. Its limit is that it is a reading app first: spelling comes along as part of phonics rather than as dictation practice. For a four- to six-year-old, that is exactly right. For a seven-year-old who reads well but misspells, it will soon be too easy.

Endless Reader and Endless Alphabet

Originator's Endless apps are gentle, funny and very good at one thing: making letters and early sight words feel friendly. Animated monsters act out words, letters wriggle into place, and children drag them to build each word. Both apps are free to try with a handful of words, and further word packs are sold inside the app.

These apps are about recognition and letter order, not recall. There is no testing and no spacing, so think of them as a warm introduction to print for preschoolers, not as practice for a school spelling list.

Reading Eggs and Reading Eggspress

Reading Eggs is a large, structured reading program for ages 2 to 13. The early levels teach phonics through lessons and games; Reading Eggspress, for older children, adds comprehension, spelling and grammar. In the United States the reading and math plan costs $13.99 a month or $99.99 a year, with a 30-day free trial.

It is thorough, well sequenced and popular with parents who want one program to cover early reading. Spelling is one part of a much larger whole, though. If spelling is your specific worry, you are paying for a lot you may not need.

Word Wizard for Kids

Word Wizard, from the independent developer L'Escapadou (Pierre Abel), is a talking movable alphabet for iPad and iPhone. A child drags letters to build any word and hears it read back, which is a lovely way to explore how sounds become letters. It also has spelling quizzes, about 200 built-in lists covering roughly 2,000 words, and it lets you type in your child's own school list. It costs $12.99 once, with no subscription.

The one-off price and the custom lists make it good value. It does not schedule reviews for you, so the spacing is up to you. Last year's version of this article credited it to Montessorium, which was wrong.

For school-age children, roughly ages 6 to 11

Squeebles Spelling Connect

Squeebles, from the UK developer Key Stage Fun, has been a quiet favorite with parents for years because of one feature: you can enter your child's weekly school list and record the words in your own voice. The child hears you say the word and types it, which is exactly the retrieval practice the research favors, then earns small rewards and mini-games. It now runs as Spelling Connect on iPad, Android, Windows, Mac and the web, with no advertising.

A family subscription covers up to four children for £2.99 a month or £29.99 a year, after a seven-day free trial. The rewards are modest by modern standards, which some children mind. The bigger limit is that it tests this week's list well but does not, by itself, bring last month's words back at spaced intervals.

DoodleSpell

DoodleSpell, from DoodleLearning in the UK, is sold together with DoodleEnglish. It starts with a short assessment, then builds a personal program of short daily exercises: filling in missing letters, spelling a word after hearing it, choosing correct spellings, and practicing common tricky words. It follows the English national curriculum, and its "little and often" design fits what we know about spacing. There are dashboards for parents and teachers.

For one child it costs £7.99 a month or £69.99 a year, and a family plan is £12.99 a month or £119.99 a year, all after a seven-day trial. It is one of the better adaptive options. Families outside the UK should know the curriculum and year groups are British, though the words themselves are the same.

Spelling Shed

Spelling Shed, from EdShed, is widely used in UK schools and increasingly in American ones. It pairs a structured spelling curriculum, built on phonics, morphology (word parts) and word history, with an arcade-style game in which children spell words against the clock. Teachers can set lists and see results, and the company grounds its approach in the science of reading and in orthographic mapping, the process by which a spelling gets bound to a word's sounds and meaning.

There is a free tier and a premium tier, but home prices are not listed publicly; the pricing page asks you to request a quote. If your child's school already uses it, a home login often comes with the school's license, and that is the best way in. The speed game is fun but can reward fast guessing. The lessons are where the lasting learning happens.

SplashLearn

SplashLearn covers preschool to fifth grade in math and reading, and its reading side includes phonics, sight words and early spelling through games. It is free for teachers to use in class. Families pay a subscription whose price varies by plan and region, so check the current offer in the app.

Children tend to like it, and it suits a family that wants one app for both subjects. As a spelling tool it is light: most activities are about reading words rather than producing them from memory.

For confident readers, roughly 8 and up

SpellQuiz

SpellQuiz is a web platform with grade-level spelling paths from first grade through twelfth, plus lists for adults. It begins with a vocabulary diagnostic, then gives listen-and-type spelling tests with audio for every word, which is the right format. It is free to start with no credit card. Paid plans for families and teachers add more, but they are not priced on the public pages, so look inside your account.

It is plain rather than playful, which some children find refreshing and others find dull. It is a strong choice for a child who wants to test themselves across a wide range of words, and for spelling-bee families who want volume.

Spelling.School

We make this one, so read this section with that in mind. It is a web app for anyone learning to spell in English, not a children's game. A clear voice says a word and uses it in a sentence, your child types it, and the app shows exactly which letters went wrong and why. It then schedules each word for review with spaced repetition, so the spacing the research favors happens automatically. There are ten levels from everyday words to competition words, plus topic lists, and a short adaptive warm-up finds your child's level on the first day. When a child keeps missing the same pattern, it brings in a few extra words built on that pattern.

Every account starts with a 14-day trial of everything. After that, a free plan keeps every review going forever and adds three new words a day. Pro, with every level, unlimited new words and the option to add your own words, is $95 a year or $15 a month. The honest limits: each child practises on their own profile, and a family plan ($149 a year for up to six) gives the parent one page showing how each child is doing; there are no games or characters, only streaks, milestones and progress charts; the voice is American, though British spellings are accepted; and it runs in a browser rather than as a phone app. It suits children who type comfortably, usually from about eight, and who respond to steady, quiet practice rather than play.

The ten side by side

"Partly" and "some" are our judgments from each app's own description and our use, not lab measurements. Treat the table as a starting point for your own look.

What happened to the old favorites

Two names that were on nearly every list a few years ago need a word of explanation, because parents still search for them.

VocabularySpellingCity, the website many families used for homework, now redirects to Vocabulary A-Z from Learning A-Z, which is aimed mainly at teachers and schools. If your child's class uses it, the school will give you a login. For home use, check what Learning A-Z currently offers before paying.

ABCmouse, from Age of Learning, is still a broad early-learning program covering reading, math and more for young children. It includes phonics and some early spelling, but it is not a spelling app, and a subscription only makes sense if you want the whole program.

Last year's list also included "Grammarly Junior". There is no such product. We described a tool we hoped might appear, which does not belong on a list of apps you can use, and it has been removed.

How to choose in five minutes

Start with your child's stage, not the app store rating. A child still learning which letters make which sounds needs phonics play, and Duolingo ABC or Reading Eggs will do more good than any spelling test. A child who reads well but spells badly needs dictation, and every app in the second and third groups offers it in some form.

Then watch what your child actually does in the first session. Sit beside them for ten minutes. If they are hearing words and typing or building them most of the time, the app is doing its job. If they are mostly choosing answers, watching animations or decorating an avatar, it is entertainment with some spelling in it, which is fine in moderation but will not fix a spelling problem.

Check whether it brings words back. If it does not, you can supply the spacing yourself: a quick re-test of last week's list on Monday, and of last month's list on the first of the month, costs you three minutes and makes any app far more useful. There is more on this in how to do spelling homework without a fight.

Finally, keep sessions short and daily. Ten minutes a day beats an hour on Sunday, for the spacing reasons above and because a tired child learns little. If your child has dyslexia or has struggled for a long time, an app is a supplement to structured teaching, not a replacement; spelling practice for kids with dyslexia covers what helps at home.

What screens can and cannot do

Some parents worry that typing on an app will not help a child spell with a pencil. The evidence is more reassuring than the worry. For young children still learning letter shapes, handwriting does matter: Karin James and Laura Engelhardt found in 2012 that printing letters by hand, more than typing or tracing them, engaged the brain's reading network in five-year-olds. For older children who already form letters easily, what matters most for spelling is retrieving the word from memory, and that happens whether the answer goes through a keyboard or a pencil.

So a sensible mix for a school-age child is an app for daily retrieval and spacing, plus real writing on paper, where you gently pick out one or two misspelled words a week to add to the app. The app does the remembering. The writing shows whether it has carried over.

What no app can do is replace an adult who explains why a word is spelled the way it is. The best apps build that explanation in. For the rest, a parent who can say "that's the drop-the-e rule" when it comes up does more than any star chart. If you want the science behind testing before you pick, the testing effect is a good short read.

What to do next

Pick one app from the group that matches your child's stage, and use it for ten minutes a day for two weeks before judging it. Note five words your child got wrong in the first session and check them again, on paper, at the end of the two weeks. If they stick, the app is working. If they do not, the app is probably letting your child recognize words rather than recall them, and one of the listen-and-type options above will serve you better.

If you would like to feel what spaced, listen-and-type practice is like, you can try five words on the Spelling.School home page with no sign-up, or see what the free plan and Pro include on the pricing page.

Questions people ask

What is the best free spelling app for kids?

For young children learning letters and sounds, Duolingo ABC is completely free, with no ads and no in-app purchases, and it covers phonics and early sight words well. For older children who need to practice spelling whole words, SpellQuiz is free to start and uses a listen-and-type format. Several paid apps also have free levels that a child can use for as long as they like.

Do spelling apps actually improve spelling?

They can, if the app makes the child produce spellings from memory and brings words back over several days. Research on retrieval practice and spacing shows these two features make learning last much longer than rereading or cramming. Apps that mostly ask a child to choose the correct spelling from options, or that are mainly games, help much less.

What happened to VocabularySpellingCity?

VocabularySpellingCity now redirects to Vocabulary A-Z, a product from Learning A-Z aimed mainly at teachers and schools. If your child's school uses it, the school will provide the login. Families who used the old home membership should check what Learning A-Z currently offers for home use before paying.

What age should a child start using a spelling app?

Children can start with phonics apps such as Duolingo ABC or Endless Reader from about three or four, as a playful introduction to letters and sounds. Spelling practice apps, where a child hears a word and types it, usually make sense from about six or seven, once the child reads simple words. Keep sessions short, around ten minutes, whatever the age.

Is it better for kids to practice spelling on paper or on an app?

Both have a place. For young children, handwriting helps them learn letter shapes, so writing on paper matters in the early years. For older children, what matters most is retrieving the word from memory, which an app can do well and schedule efficiently, so a mix of daily app practice and regular writing on paper works best.

Can I add my child's school spelling list to an app?

Yes, several apps allow it. Squeebles lets you type the weekly list and record the words in your own voice, Word Wizard lets you build custom lists, and Spelling Shed lets teachers set lists for a class. Some listen-and-type apps also let you add your own words on a paid plan, and then bring them back on a spaced schedule.

Fix the words you actually get wrong

A few minutes a day, spaced repetition, built only for spelling. Try five words without signing up.