If you've narrowed your search for a UK spelling app down to a shortlist, there's a good chance Spelling.Live and SpellCast are both on it. Both are modern, calm, UK-built apps aimed at the same job: helping a primary-age child practise the words their school actually sets, in British English, without leaderboards or timers by default turning it into a race.
The short version: Spelling.Live does everything SpellCast (and EdShed's Spelling Shed) do for typed, on-screen spelling practice - then adds the parts neither of them does at all. This post spells out exactly where the three line up, and exactly where they don't.
One honesty note before we start: we re-checked every SpellCast claim below against SpellCast's own help centre on 28 September 2026, and corrected two things we had got wrong in the first version of this post (SpellCast does let you enter your own list at home, and it does read a photo of one). Prices and features may have changed since - always confirm on each app's own site before subscribing.
Where they agree: the typing baseline
Strip away the differences and all three apps share the same foundation:
- Built around the DfE's National Curriculum. Spelling.Live, SpellCast and EdShed's Spelling Shed are all structured around the same statutory word lists in English Appendix 1 - Reception's common exception words through the Year 5/6 list - so a child practising on any of the three is practising curriculum-aligned words, not an app's own invented list.
- Your own school list. Spelling.Live and SpellCast both let a parent type, paste or photograph the list that came home (SpellCast's camera reads a printed list; Spelling.Live's also reads one written by hand); Spelling Shed's is typed in. On all three, a child practises the exact words the teacher set.
- Typed spelling practice. On all three, a child can type the word they hear and get it marked. That's the core loop SpellCast is built around, and it's one of several ways to answer in Spelling.Live too.
- British English audio. Colour, not color - all three use UK voices and UK spellings, which matters more than it sounds when a US-made app is teaching a British six-year-old to write organize. SpellCast goes a step further here with three recorded regional voices (Southern, Northern and Scottish); Spelling.Live offers UK, US, Australian and Indian English, since a school's English is the thing that decides which spelling is right.
- Missed words come back. Both apps bring a word a child got wrong round again sooner, and let a word they've mastered fade.
If typed practice against your school list is all you need, any of the three will do that job. So the real question isn't "which one can type-test my child" - it's what happens once you need more than that.
Quick comparison
| Spelling.Live | SpellCast | Spelling Shed (EdShed) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| National Curriculum lists | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Typed spelling practice | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Your own school list | Type, paste or photograph (printed or handwritten) | Type, paste or photograph (printed only) | Typed only |
| Ways to answer | Choose, type, say aloud, write by hand | Type | Type, letter tiles |
| Handwriting checked by AI | Yes | No | No |
| Paper test marked from a photo | Yes (marked sheets and dictation) | No (a teacher can type paper scores in) | No |
| Why a word was wrong | Names the spelling pattern, with a coaching tip | Shows what the child typed | Right/wrong, level up/down |
| Screen-free practice pack from your child's own words | Yes (look-cover-write-check, crossword or word search, paragraph, Friday test) | Free generic printables (word lists, word sorts, pretest sheets) | No |
| Schedule lists weeks ahead | Yes (a queue the plan works through) | Yes (up to 26 weeks) | No |
| Share the week's list with other parents by link | No | Yes | No |
| UK audio | Yes | Yes, three regional voices | Yes |
| Parent/teacher reports | Yes, pattern-level | Yes, word-level with what was typed | Yes |
| Review & exclude a wrong practice attempt from reports | Yes (Practice History) | No | No |
| AI picture hints for early years (5-7) | Yes | No | No |
| Price (family) | Free to start, then £4 for 400 credits, or £5.99/mo for up to 4 children | £2.99/mo or £19.99/yr, up to 4 children | ~£29.99/yr, up to 5 children |
* Every "No" reflects what SpellCast and Spelling Shed offered as of 28 September 2026, SpellCast's read from its own help centre - not a permanent gap, so check each site for what's changed since. Home pricing also as of September 2026; SpellCast also offers schools a flat £399/year plan with one class free, and Spelling Shed is priced per pupil for schools.
Beyond typing: what neither app does
This is the half of the table that doesn't fit in a row. Everything below reflects what SpellCast and Spelling Shed offered as of 28 September 2026 - check their own sites for what's changed since.
Point your camera at the list - and at the test
Every school sends home its own list - the one from Friday's actual test, written on a slip of paper or printed in a spelling log book. Spelling.Live and SpellCast both let you photograph the sheet from the book bag and have the words load automatically; Spelling Shed's lists are typed in by hand, word by word.
Where Spelling.Live goes further is what the camera can read. SpellCast's reads a printed or typed list; in our testing it could not read a handwritten one, and plenty of lists come home in the teacher's handwriting or copied into a spelling book by the child. Spelling.Live reads both. And it doesn't stop at the blank list: photograph the marked test that came home - ticks, crosses and all - and every result is recorded against the right word, or run a dictation test where the app reads the words aloud, your child writes them on numbered paper, and a photo of the finished page gets marked. SpellCast lets a teacher type paper test scores into its records; nothing on SpellCast or Spelling Shed reads the paper itself.
Handwriting, not just typing
A Friday spelling test is handwritten. Typing b correctly on a keyboard doesn't catch a flipped b on paper - and neither SpellCast nor Spelling Shed checks handwriting at all; both are screen-and-keyboard (or on-screen letter tap) only.
Spelling.Live's handwriting pad is checked by AI as the child writes, on screen or from a photo, catching the spelling and flagging letter reversals or formation issues typing would never reveal.
Practice that needs no screen at all
Plenty of families limit screen time, and a Friday test is written on paper anyway. SpellCast has a good library of free printables - national curriculum word lists, word sorts and pretest sheets - but they are the same for every child. Spelling.Live's printed practice pack is built from your child's own data: one tap on their card prints a week of paper practice made from the words they are actually working on.
- Look, cover, write, check. Every word is printed with its tricky part picked out, such as "look at: ght", from the same pattern diagnosis the progress reports use.
- A crossword or a word search. Older children get a crossword using the same clues as the app, which never name the word; younger children get a word search followed by a cover-the-list box.
- A paragraph to write (older children), using four of their words.
- A numbered Friday test with a grown-up strip: the words in order, a sentence for each, and a warning where a word sounds like another.
The words that have been missed or are due for another go come first and are starred, and a preview shows exactly which words were chosen and why before anything is printed. Printing is free. The Friday test and the paragraph can then be marked and fed back into the progress report (marking the test from a photo uses credits, like a dictation test); the other pages show the spelling, so they record nothing. See the help page for how to fold and use each sheet. The pack is printed from the website, not the phone app.
A baseline from real paper, then the engine takes over
That marked-test photo isn't just a one-off mark: it sets a baseline. The words your child got wrong are logged and joined to a spaced-repetition engine that runs quietly behind every session from then on - a word they missed comes back tomorrow, a word they've nailed three times running drifts weeks into the future, and each practice session is automatically front-loaded with whatever's due, whether that session is typed, handwritten, spoken or a game. A parent doesn't have to build or maintain a "words to focus on" list by hand - photograph one real test, and the app takes it from there. How the spaced-repetition engine works.
Diagnose why, not just what
SpellCast's reports are genuinely good at showing what happened: a word history with the exact wrong spellings a child typed, a list of words they've "cracked", and words to keep practising. Spelling Shed levels a child up or down through its game tiers. Spelling.Live goes one step further and tells you why: every mistake is matched against the spelling pattern behind it - silent letters, doubled consonants, homophones, unstressed vowels and more - so instead of "possesion" next to "possession," a parent sees "the double letters are the pattern to work on," and the app's AI coaching is built from that exact diagnosis rather than a generic tip.
A week that adapts to your child, not a fixed cycle
SpellCast runs a sensible weekly rhythm for the school list: a quick scout check across the words, training on the ones the child missed, then a "battle" test at the end, and a parent can queue lists up to 26 weeks ahead. Spelling Shed levels difficulty up or down through its game tiers. Both adapt what gets practised. Spelling.Live's Learning plan also adapts the shape of the week: a parent picks a goal for their child - Stretch for a confident speller who wants pushing further, Balanced, or Confidence-building - and a ready-made weekly plan spreads short daily activities around it, so a child gets a genuine mix (handwriting one day, typing the next, a paper test, a game) rather than the same drill five times over. And when a game turns up in that mix, it's still played with the child's own spelling list, not a generic word pool - so even the "fun" day is rehearsing this week's actual words.
Answer however suits the child
A good spelling app should support recognition, typing, speaking and writing from memory - different activities strengthen different parts of the learning, and an app built around only one of them is practising a narrower skill than the one a real test measures. Spelling.Live covers all four: Pick it (recognition - choosing the right spelling from close options), Type it, Write it (handwriting, checked by AI) and Say it (speaking the word aloud, checked from speech). SpellCast and Spelling Shed both mean typing (SpellCast varies the framing - a scaffolded "training grounds" mode that reveals letters before asking for the word, a 60-second sprint, a ladder - and Spelling Shed adds letter-tile games) - neither offers a spoken-answer mode, and neither is built around deliberately rotating a child through recognition and recall. However a word is answered on Spelling.Live - typed, handwritten, spoken, or photographed from a marked paper test - it all feeds the same progress report, tricky-word ranking and revision schedule, not four separate pictures of the same child.
And the parts that adapt to the child, not just mark the word
Four more, each on by default and yours to tune - none of which we found on SpellCast or Spelling Shed as of September 2026:
- The Aid Ladder. Get a word wrong and help arrives one step at a time - a flash of the word, or a coaching tip from Tongo naming the actual mistake - then just the tricky letters, then more, with a retry after every step and an honest "correct with help" recorded in the report rather than a silently inflated score. Read how it works.
- Reading settings built for how your child actually reads. SpellCast offers the OpenDyslexic font and honours your device's reduced-motion setting, which is a good start. Spelling.Live adds Lexend, colour overlays, adjustable text size and letter and line spacing, speech slow-down, and a low-pressure mode that strips timers and leaderboards from games - previewed live before a parent commits to anything. More on accessibility at Spelling.Live.
- Review an attempt, then decide if it should count. A misread word, a stray tap, a distracted moment - a parent, tutor or teacher can exclude any single attempt from the accuracy report and revision schedule, without ever changing or deleting the original record. How Practice History works.
- A picture clue for every early-years word. Ages 5-7 get an AI-generated illustration for each word, built from its meaning - never its letters, so it can't give the spelling away - shown as a hint during practice and as a falling reward in Balloon Pop. How the picture hints are made.
Pay as you go, or one flat monthly price
SpellCast's family plan is a subscription (£2.99 a month or £19.99 a year for up to four children, as of September 2026), and so is Spelling Shed's. Spelling.Live started the other way round: free to start with 200 credits, then credits from £4 with no subscription, so a family that practises a little pays a little.
Families that practise every day told us they would rather not watch a balance run down, so there is now a Family plan: £5.99 a month. Practice is free for up to four of your children with no credits used, it includes 20 new picture hints a month, it renews monthly and you can cancel any time (it then runs to the end of the month you paid for). You choose which children are covered. It is for families, so schools and tutors ask for a quote instead. Full terms are in our terms. Credits stay available either way, and the two sit side by side: a child the plan does not cover simply uses credits as before. How credits work.
Where SpellCast and EdShed are a good fit
To be fair to both: SpellCast's calm, no-timer-by-default, hero-and-villains design is genuinely well thought through, and it has a few home conveniences Spelling.Live doesn't have yet - a link that drops the week's list straight into another family's app (handy for the class group chat) and those three regional voices. Daily practice reminders are no longer on that list: since October 2026 both apps let a parent pick a time for a reminder on the phone or tablet, and Spelling.Live's also lets you choose the days, sends siblings one reminder between them and skips a day the child has already practised. Its school offer is strong too: a free single class where no child names are ever stored, a class heatmap, a live whiteboard wallboard and a flat £399 a year for a whole school. If your school already assigns it, using it for homework is the obvious, low-friction choice. Spelling Shed is the platform most UK schools actually use for spelling homework, its game-based "hive" challenges are engaging for children who like a bit of competition, and a £29.99/year family plan covering five children is good value if that's the whole feature set you need.
If typed, on-screen practice against the school list is genuinely all your child needs, either is a solid, well-built choice - and Spelling Shed in particular has the advantage of being what your child's teacher is probably already using.
A word on EdShed / Spelling Shed
"EdShed" is the company; Spelling Shed is its spelling product, and it's the one most UK primary schools actually assign for homework - which is exactly why so many parents search for it by name. Everything above about typing parity and the paper/handwriting/diagnosis gap applies to Spelling Shed as much as it does to SpellCast. For the fuller picture - including how Spelling.Live compares with six other UK spelling apps, not just these two - see our longer Spelling.Live vs Spelling Shed, Squeebles, Sir Linkalot and more comparison.
The honest summary
- Want pure typed practice against the school list, and your school already uses SpellCast or Spelling Shed? Either is a good, calm choice for that job.
- Want screen-free practice that still uses your child's own words, or a flat monthly price rather than credits? Spelling.Live's printed practice pack and Family plan are built for that.
- Want the actual list from the book bag checked by handwriting or spoken aloud as well as typed, with real paper tests marked from a photo and turned into a baseline the app schedules for you, a weekly plan built around your own choice of goal, every mistake diagnosed down to the pattern behind it, help that arrives one step at a time when they're stuck, and settings that adapt to how your child reads and learns? That's what Spelling.Live adds on top of the same typing foundation.
Both SpellCast and Spelling Shed are decent apps doing one job well. Spelling.Live is built to do that same job, plus the parts of spelling practice - the handwriting, the paper test, the diagnosis - that only exist off-screen or under the surface.
Frequently asked questions
Does Spelling.Live do everything SpellCast does? For typed, on-screen practice of the words school sent home, yes - both let you type, paste or photograph the list (SpellCast's camera reads a printed list; Spelling.Live's reads a handwritten one too), both use British voices, and both bring missed words back more often. SpellCast has a few home conveniences Spelling.Live doesn't yet, such as a link to share the week's list with other parents and a 60-second sprint mode. Spelling.Live adds the parts SpellCast doesn't do at all: AI handwriting checking, paper test and dictation marking from a photo, a spoken-answer mode, and a named spelling pattern behind every mistake. Checked against SpellCast's own help centre on 28 September 2026.
Why does a spelling app need more than one way to answer? Because recognition, typing, speaking and writing from memory each strengthen a different part of learning to spell a word - practising only one of them is practising a narrower skill than the one a real, handwritten test actually measures. Spelling.Live is built around all four (Pick it for recognition, Type it, Say it, and Write it for true writing-from-memory); SpellCast and Spelling Shed are both built around typing, as of September 2026.
Is Spelling.Live the same as EdShed's Spelling Shed, but with more features? Both are built around the same DfE National Curriculum word lists and both let a child type their answers. Spelling.Live adds photo word-list import (Spelling Shed's lists are typed in by hand), AI handwriting checking, paper test and dictation marking from a photo, and pattern-level diagnosis of each mistake - features Spelling Shed did not offer as of September 2026.
What can Spelling.Live do that SpellCast and EdShed can't? As of 28 September 2026, three structural things: check handwriting with AI rather than just typing, mark a real paper spelling test or dictation from a photo (SpellCast lets a teacher type in paper scores, but nothing reads the sheet), and diagnose the spelling pattern behind each mistake rather than just showing what was typed. On top of those, Spelling.Live also lets a child answer by saying the word aloud - with every mode feeding the same progress report - turns a photographed marked test into a baseline its spaced-repetition engine schedules automatically, offers step-by-step help when they get stuck (the Aid Ladder), a goal-driven weekly plan, per-child reading and accessibility settings beyond a font choice, a way to exclude a single wrong practice attempt from progress reports, and AI picture hints for children aged 5-7. We found none of these on SpellCast or Spelling Shed.
Does Spelling.Live offer a weekly learning plan? Yes - a parent picks a goal for their child (Stretch, Balanced, or Confidence-building) and Spelling.Live builds a weekly plan that mixes activities - handwriting, typing, a paper test, a game - around that goal, all still drawn from the child's own spelling list rather than a generic word pool. SpellCast runs a fixed weekly cycle for the school list (a scout check, training on the missed words, then a battle) and lets you schedule lists weeks ahead; what it doesn't do, as of September 2026, is change the shape of the week to suit a particular child.
Does Spelling.Live have screen-free spelling practice? Yes. The printed practice pack turns your child's own words into a week of paper practice: a look-cover-write-check sheet, a crossword (older children) or word search (younger children), a paragraph to write and a numbered Friday test with a grown-up strip. Words the app has marked as due for another go come first, and the tricky part of each word is picked out. SpellCast offers free generic printables such as national curriculum word lists, word sorts and pretest sheets, but we found no pack built from a child's own practice history as of 3 October 2026.
Is Spelling.Live free like SpellCast's school plan? Spelling.Live is free to start, with 200 free credits and no card required. After that you can buy credits from £4 with no subscription, or take the Family plan: £5.99 a month, cancel any time, which makes practice free for up to four of your children. SpellCast's family plan is a paid subscription (£2.99/month or £19.99/year for up to four children, after a 14-day trial, as of September 2026); its free tier is a single class for teachers. EdShed's Spelling Shed is a paid subscription too, around £29.99/year for a family.
Is there anything you'd like to see?
If you've used SpellCast or Spelling Shed and there's something they do that you wish Spelling.Live did too, we genuinely want to hear it: tell us and there's a fair chance it ends up in the app.