Amazon Alexa Smart Home

How do I teach spelling to my child with Alexa?

teach spelling
E-C-H-O: Alexa can help with spellings homework

Every Sunday, my eight-year-old and I sit down to practice the spellings she’s been set for homework. And precisely ten minutes into the exercise, she’s fed up with dealing with dad and his pernickety insistence that words are spelt correctly.

So, we’ve started using Amazon Alexa to make the spellings homework less painful.

Teach spelling with Alexa

Collins Jnr will normally get ten or so words that she has to learn. The school insists she writes them each out three times in her workbook, and then I test her on them with the book closed. Inevitably, she will get a few wrong.

Instead of making her write out the incorrect words over and again, I get her to practice with Alexa, which she thinks is great fun.

You can ask Alexa to spell any word – just say: “Alexa, how do you spell ferocious”, for example.

The great thing is she reads out the letters pretty slowly, so Collins Jnr can shout out each letter before Alexa reads it out, letting her test herself against the computer.

She will repeat it four or five times until she’s got the spelling licked and then come downstairs for another test with me.

We’ve only been doing this a few weeks, but it’s already getting results. It makes the spellings homework seem like less of a chore and her ability to remember the tricky words is improving.

Now read this: How do I delete Alexa voice recordings?

About the author

Barry Collins

Barry has scribbled about tech for almost 20 years for The Sunday Times, PC Pro, WebUser, Which? and many others. He was once Deputy Editor of Mail Online and remains in therapy to this day. Email Barry at barry@bigtechquestion.com.

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  • As an adult I have used Alexa more than once and it’s awesome. I did however test Alexa with a trick… “how do you spell “blew.” … Alexa repeated “B-L-U-E.” … There are occasions where artificial intelligence error can be as real as human error.

    • It’s a good point, Ray, although if you say “Alexa, spell the colour blue” it’s intelligent enough to work out what you mean. Finding an adequate description of “blew” is more of a challenge!