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Plenty of families want spelling practice that does not involve a screen. Maybe it is the end of a long school day, maybe it is a rule at home, maybe the child simply concentrates better with a pencil. The usual answer is a generic worksheet from the internet, which has the same weakness for every child: it is not their list, and it does not know which words they keep getting wrong.
So we built offline practice into Spelling.Live. We call the feature the printed practice pack, and the idea is simple: one tap prints a week of screen-free spelling practice built from your child's own words.
What is in the pack
Each pack is made fresh from the child's card, and you choose which pages to print in a preview.
| Page | Who it is for | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Look, cover, write, check | All ages | Every word is printed with its tricky part picked out, then a column for each day's attempt. Fold the sheet like a fan so the child sees only today's column, not yesterday's answer. Younger children get word cards instead of a table. |
| Crossword | Older children | A crossword made from this week's words, using the same clues as the app. The clues never name the word, so this is real recall. |
| Word search | Younger children | A simple word search, followed by a "Now cover the list" box. Finding a word is not the same as spelling it, so the real practice is writing three words from memory afterwards. |
| Write a paragraph | Older children | A short topic, writing lines and four of their words to use. The words sit on a grown-up strip that folds under. |
| Friday test | All ages | Numbered lines for the child, and a grown-up strip with the words in order, a sentence for each, and a warning where a word sounds like another. |
If you want the step-by-step version, including how to fold the sheets, the printed practice pack help page walks through each page.
The part that matters: the words come from your child
This is what separates the pack from a download.
A generic word list gives every child the same words. Spelling.Live already knows, for each child, which words they have missed and which are due for another go, because those answers come from their practice in the app. The pack uses that:
- Focus words come first. These are words the app has marked as due for another go, from any list your child has practised. They are starred wherever they appear in the pack, so you can see which ones matter most.
- Then this week's words. This is the list your child is currently practising, which for most families is the school list that came home on Monday.
- The tricky part is picked out. In the look-cover-write-check sheet, each word is printed with the part most likely to catch a child out underlined, such as "look at: ght". That comes from the same pattern diagnosis the progress reports use, so the pointer is about the rule and not just the word.
- You can see why. The preview lists the exact words and says why each one was chosen before anything goes to the printer.
The reason this is worth doing is spaced practice. A word a child got wrong last week is the word most worth seeing again, and an ordinary worksheet has no way of knowing which word that is. If you want the background, how Spelling.Live helps tricky words stick explains how the app decides when a word is due, and naming the pattern behind a spelling mistake explains how a mistake is matched to a spelling rule.
Why offline practice is worth having
We do not think paper is better than a screen, or the other way round. They do different jobs, and a good week uses both.
- Writing by hand is a different skill from typing. A child who types "because" correctly has not necessarily practised forming it. Our post on look, cover, write, check and handwriting goes into why many teachers still value it.
- The Friday test is usually on paper. Most school spelling tests are written, so practising on paper means practising the way the test will be sat. See how to help your child practise for a weekly spelling test at home.
- It works when screens do not. Car journeys, holidays, a shared family tablet that is busy, or a day with no wifi. For longer breaks, the spelling log book holiday practice post has more ideas.
- It fits families who limit screen time. Practice that is screen-free but still personalised means those families do not have to choose between no app and no data.
Getting results back into the app
Because paper practice is only useful if the app learns from it, two of the pages feed back.
- Mark Friday's test. After the test, tap Mark Friday's test on the child's card and photograph the sheet. The app reads what they wrote against the same numbered list, you check anything it is unsure about, and the results count toward the progress report like an in-app dictation test. This is the one step that uses credits, the same as a dictation test. The Paper practice walkthrough shows what the photo step looks like, and Paper practice and homophones explains how mix-ups like "their" and "there" are caught.
- Mark the paragraph. Tap Mark the paragraph and, for each of the four words, tick right, wrong (and type what they wrote, if you like) or not used. There is no photo and no credit. Right and wrong answers count as unaided written practice.
The look-cover-write-check sheet, the crossword and the word search are deliberately not marked. They show the spelling on the page, so a "correct" there would not tell you the child can spell the word without help. Recording only what the child produced unaided keeps the progress report honest. That is the same reasoning behind why assessment data quality matters.
What we plan to add
This is the first release, and we want to learn from how families use it. These are plans, not promises, and they may change depending on what we find.
- More personalised help for the individual child. Today the pack picks words and points at the tricky part. We would like pages that focus on one spelling rule at a time, or that break long words into their pieces the way Word Parts does on screen, chosen from what that child actually finds hard.
- A paper day in the weekly learning plan, so a family can put a printed session into the week on purpose rather than printing ad hoc.
- An easier way to send results back, so the marked sheet identifies itself and the parent has less to do.
- Handwriting pages, building on the handwriting feedback the app already gives, such as the handwriting analysis in the progress reports.
- Teacher versions. Class dashboards already print numbered test sheets, and we are exploring suggested pupil groups with printable sheets, based on shared spelling patterns. Teachers can read how the paper class test works.
If there is something you would want from offline practice that is not on this list, the Feedback button in the app comes straight to us.
Free spelling resources you can print today
You do not need an account to get value from paper practice. These are free:
- Free spelling resources: the statutory word lists for Year 1 to Year 6, each with a printable practice sheet.
- Printable spelling test sheet: a ready-made ten-word test layout.
- Spelling activities for weekly lists, for remembering words, for similar words and for handwriting: practice ideas that go beyond copying a list out.
- Spelling pattern guides: plain-English explanations of the spelling rules behind common mistakes, with examples.
- KS1 common exception words: the Year 1 and Year 2 lists.
- Spelling workload audit: a free PDF and Word download for teachers, with a class spelling pattern tracker.
- Helping a child who finds spelling hard: practical ideas for families.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Spelling.Live printed practice pack? It is a set of printable, screen-free spelling activities built from your child's own words. It has a look-cover-write-check sheet, a crossword (older children) or word search (younger children), a short paragraph to write (older children) and a numbered Friday test with a grown-up strip. You print it from your child's card on the website.
Where do the words in the pack come from? From your child's own data, not a generic list. Words the app has marked as due for another go come first and are starred, followed by the list your child is currently practising. The preview shows exactly which words were picked and why before you print.
Does printing the pack cost credits? No. Printing is free, and so is marking the paragraph. Only marking the Friday test from a photo uses credits, the same amount as a dictation test in the app. How credits work has the full breakdown.
Can the pack be used without an app account? The personalised pack needs a signed-in parent account, because that is where your child's words live. For a free printable that needs no account, see the printable spelling test sheet and the free Year 1 to Year 6 word lists on the resources page.
Do the results from the paper pages go back into the app? Partly, by design. The Friday test and the paragraph record results, because the child writes them without the spelling in front of them. The look-cover-write-check sheet, crossword and word search show the spelling on the page, so they record nothing and are there to help words stick.
Try it
Sign in, find your child's card on the home screen and look for the practice pack panel. If you use the phone app, open spelling.live in a browser to print. New to Spelling.Live? Start here to see how the app works, or read the help page for the printed practice pack.