VocabularySpellingCity Reviews

by Perrynstep

2017 VocabularySpellingCity is now ONLY for Premium users, we spent a lot of time the past few years adding our lists on here and loved it as we could use it wherever we were at. Now we can only access it on the computer through the internet website (which we prefer to limit internet access with our children). We understand they need to make some $$ but we can no longer give it the rating we had before because 'VocabularySpellingCity ' no longer offers it's original purpose to all members which is what we originally got it for.
2014 We love VocabularySpellingCity and have used it for the past few years. It has been a big help, especially now since we home school. The update for VocabularySpellingCity said it would help with the new iOS update, I just updated yesterday and now I can't get VocabularySpellingCity to work. It says it doesn't support my devices resolution now. Can you please fix this soon ?!?

by RARMD

I would give VocabularySpellingCity 5 stars as it has been a great tool in the past, but now with the latest updates, I feel I can only give it 1 star. I have used VocabularySpellingCity in the past as a reinforcing learning tool for my daughters spelling words that they bring home from school. They don't like writing their words everyday to study them. VocabularySpellingCity had been great because they could play games, take practice tests, etc with their classroom words. Even though our teacher doesn't use this program, I would input their words at the beginning of the week so they could learn them by "playing." Now I can't get VocabularySpellingCity to work as it used to and every time I go to login it just takes me to the list page and there is not a way for them to find the games they had been playing in their previous school years. This used to be a great app for learning AND fun, now they'll just have to look at their lists to study and *gasp* write their words!

by KK In TX

Don't have your kids waste their time on the games. They are not going to learn their weekly words fast enough using the games.
On the other hand, the teach some, testNteach, and test me are exactly what you need for your child to learn independently.
The #1 feature is TestNTeach-it calls out word, they try the word, then it immediately corrects them by spelling it out and adds that misspelled word to the end of test and continues to ask it until child spells it correctly on their own.

The above opinion was before they decided to charge $35 a year! We no longer are able to use the product, because at that price, I only purchase lifetime subscriptions. It's not a self standing teaching platform, rather a tool. It requires your effort putting in lists and making assignments etc. The price is unreasonable.

by KrystleHill

We have been using this SpellingCity app for years. It has been fantastic for my younger son, and I have been considering the paid version... until today.

I entered my son's words as usual, and then went to check that they had imported to VocabularySpellingCity . When I opened it, I was met with a message telling me I had to update to continue. No problem. I went back to VocabularySpellingCity , only to be told, it is only for premium members!!!! Now you have to use the website for the free version, but of course it uses flash, which iPads don't support! Hence the purpose of VocabularySpellingCity in the first place!

It is their company, so they can do what they want. And had they given me notice that this would be occurring, I would have purchased a membership. Now however, they have lost our business, and I am off in search of a replacement!

by Cheermom82

I see my daughter use VocabularySpellingCity for homework. I always notice that when she clicks things, they don’t go through unless you push them like 10 times. Also, the game “Word Scramble,” the audio keeps on running, and it’s sound terrible and very annoying. She always complains to her father saying, “Daddy, can you fix it?” and stuff like that. I’ve complained to her school that she really does not need SpellingCity, or at least I don’t think so. Also, I don’t know if your school does this, but parents have to pay for the Premium. It’s outrageous! I would gladly pay for Premium, especially for my daughter’s education, but not for something like SpellingCity. If SpellingCity could do an awesome update, or just at least fix some bugs, it would surly do the trick for parents like me and husband to enjoy it. After all, do help with homework!

by PHX Mommy Of 2

I have been using VocabularySpellingCity going on for 5 years. My fifth grader struggles with reading and vocabulary and VocabularySpellingCity assisted her and being successful for the past four years. Now that the new school year has started we have logged in to find that VocabularySpellingCity is no longer an app and it's web based. It only works with flash player, which is not available on Apple products. She is no longer able to use The "test me" feature or the "teach me" feature to make sure that she is spelling her vocabulary words correctly. We were able to lock her in and she could study as we cook dinner or in the car. Very frustrated and distraught that we are going to struggle more now that she's getting older and are losing our best resource to help provide her education outside of the classroom.

by Sml2500

We have used spelling city in my school and classroom for several years. Last year I was fortunate enough to receive an iPad cart so each student has their own iPad. We use VocabularySpellingCity almost everyday and it is very convenient since I do spelling groups instead of one list for the whole class. Unfortunately, since the last update it has been more of a nuisance than a helpful tool. It does not keep students logged in and logging in for my second graders is not an easy task. The entire layout has changed which completely threw my kids for a loop. I hope that VocabularySpellingCity creators will address some of these issues to make VocabularySpellingCity a little more user friendly in the classroom.

by Teacher3041

The latest update is horrific! As a premium paid member I have a ton more set up to do for my students for them to use VocabularySpellingCity . There are less choices as I can only assign 10 assignments. That's right, I HAVE to assign. They can't choose. While using iPads with 23 students, I have had on average over the first two weeks of school, 9-11 students that have had VocabularySpellingCity constantly "kick" them out every time we used the program. Difficult to manage while I am working with small groups to constantly troubleshoot the "kick out". Not even almost considering renewing the premium account. Will move on. Oh yeah...never even notified of all of the login changes...discovered it as we all had iPads and started to use it. WOW!

by Braintrainer605

Although this is only my third year using VocabularySpellingCity, all 35 of my spelling lists have been entered and are ready to go. All 30 of my students have been uploaded and are ready to go. The thing that's NOT ready is VocabularySpellingCity. Why on earth would I download VocabularySpellingCity on my device and the 16 student iPads just to be directed to the web. Certainly this is something that will be fixed, right?? I hate (yes, I feel that strongly) the changes that have been made, especially for students logging in and teachers creating assignments. Everything from last year was fine. Why change it at all? There's no way I'm adding our new vocabulary lists now. What a disappointment.

by Jjt1945

Unfortunately, when my son plays this on our iPad, he has to press a button like 10 times before it actually registers. So, even if he has tapped the correct letter to spell a word, for example, he thinks he has not done so. This is a problem since the point of the games is to teach children how to spell words correctly to prepare for spelling tests. This happens with all of the premium games when playing on the iPad. This is extremely disappointing. I only invested the $35 for the premium membership so that my kids could play this on our portable electronic devices. It doesn’t work. VocabularySpellingCity needs to be fixed. I plan to seek a refund.

by Lizzieblizz

My daughter’s school provides Spelling City for their students. It has been very helpful as a learning tool for my daughter, much more effective than when we used to have her write out her words and test her on them. The games seem to help because she sees the words more frequently as she interacts with them, which I think helps her remember them.

However, we have had some issues with the iPad app that have been very frustrating. Her list last week was contractions, and when she played games that required her to type in the word, it never accepted her apostrophes. She was very frustrated and confused and I had to assure her that she was spelling her words correctly. Additionally, when playing Sound It Out, if a word has multiples of the same letter, it will say she spelled the word wrong if she doesn’t pick the right letter block. Really, any block that represents the same letter should work.

Please fix these issues!

by Drum Beginner

VocabularySpellingCity is used by my daughter’s school as a regular homework. She really enjoys the exercises, and VocabularySpellingCity seems to be a really good learning tool. Unfortunately it is very unstable, it’s very slow to start and just gets stuck or completely crashes on a regular basis. One of the problems seems to be with the server, but VocabularySpellingCity itself has issues as well - especially with ‘older, less powerful’ devices. We have a fast internet, and the only device (of the four I have tried it on) VocabularySpellingCity works with reasonably well is my iPad Pro - but even this has to be regularly restarted to get VocabularySpellingCity working. And I don’t mean closing just VocabularySpellingCity , but I literally have to do a complete shutdown and restart of the device! This is the only app my device has problems with, so its not an issue with the iPad itself.

Please fix VocabularySpellingCity !

by Vhgddj

I bought VocabularySpellingCity because my son’s class is using it and I have other children with spelling words so I figured let’s get everyone on the same program. Not a good idea. The iPad app has so many problems they get very frustrated trying to use it. I have also spent the last hour playing with it trying to figure it out and I can’t it’s terrible. When I complete a spelling test and click “done” after checking all my words it says they are all wrong o% 😂 and I’m the parent. I will definitely get my money back on this one.

by SportySpice3

We have been using VocabularySpellingCity for several years and it has been an excellent tool. Suddenly it has become very glitchy on our iOs Devices (multiple) despite running updates and deleting/reinstalling VocabularySpellingCity . I started to wonder if it had to do with all the sudden complaints about the newly added premium membership fees to stuents. I called customer service (via their website) and someone answered right away. He was extremely helpful and clarified that (at least in our case) the school covers the student's "Premium", thus it is still free for my student to access the spelling lists created by her teacher. I'll admit this is confusing as on the student login it does say "For premium members only" which is misleading. If your child's teacher gave them a user name and password, your school is most likely covering the premium fee on behalf of the student. Now, the glitches we're having are still a probem, but at least I konw they are unrelated to all the complaints about the premium membership. I have subbmitted feedback on the techincal difficulties/behaviours we are having, so I'm hopeful they'll get resolved. Other than that, great app and tool for my daughter, and I'm thankful our school covers the premium fee.

by Missannapolis

I absolutely love VocabularySpellingCity for loading students spelling words. I homeschool and previously made all the flash cards as lesson prep, and it took forever- looking up the definitions, making it appropriate for a 1st grader and making an accompanying picture (which would be my suggestion to the developer- in addition to pulling the definitions a great extra would be also including a picture/clip art image for the words) it’s really helpful to visual learners. I really can’t complement this product enough. I can each students progress and focus on trouble words. The kids are all getting A’s on exams because of the reinforcement in a fun format. Worth noting; I’ve noticed older iPads seem to have glitches with splat and spell. Highly recommend for anyone with weekly spelling lists