Recent Updates

Enhanced Mobile Spelling Practice

Introducing a custom virtual keyboard specifically designed for spelling practice on mobile devices.

What’s New:

• Custom on-screen keyboard: A built-in virtual keyboard that appears during spelling sessions on mobile devices
• No autocorrect interference: Prevents mobile keyboard autocorrect and word suggestions from giving away answers
• Authentic practice experience: Students must rely on their spelling knowledge rather than device assistance
• Mobile-optimized layout: Clean, responsive design that works perfectly on phones and tablets

Why This Matters:

Mobile device keyboards often have autocorrect and word suggestion features that can defeat the purpose of spelling practice by showing the correct spelling. Our custom virtual keyboard ensures that students get genuine practice without external hints, making mobile spelling sessions as effective as desktop practice.

The virtual keyboard automatically appears on touch devices during spelling review sessions, providing a distraction-free learning environment!

Smart Content Filtering with Family Flexibility

Completely redesigned our word filtering system to balance content safety with educational value, giving parents full control over their family’s word lists.

What’s New:

• Flagging instead of blocking: Words are now flagged for review rather than automatically rejected
• Parent approval system: Parents can review and approve/reject flagged words through an intuitive interface
• Family-specific standards: Each family can set their own content standards and overrides
• Hidden until approved: Flagged words are automatically hidden from student review sessions until parent approval
• Improved AI filtering: More nuanced filtering that understands educational context (words like “poison”, “greed”, “jail” are flagged but not blocked)

How It Works:

• When words are added (via manual entry, bulk import, or photo upload), potentially sensitive words are automatically flagged
• Parents receive clear notifications about flagged words in their dashboard
• Parents can review each word with context and decide to approve or reject
• Approved words enter the normal learning rotation; rejected words are permanently excluded
• Parents can override decisions and adjust filtering sensitivity for their family

Why This Change:

The previous system was too restrictive and blocked educational vocabulary that many families wanted to include. This new system respects family values while ensuring students have access to comprehensive vocabulary for their learning level.

Parents now have complete control over their children’s word lists while maintaining appropriate content safety!

Visualize Learning Progress Over Time

The parent dashboard stats page now includes powerful new analytics that show exactly how practice sessions correlate with spelling progress.

What’s New:

• Proficiency Progress Chart: Visual timeline showing how words move through learning stages over the past 12 weeks

  • See distribution of words across all proficiency levels: Beginning → Developing → Emerging Mastery → Approaching Mastery → Mastered
  • Color-coded stacked bars make it easy to track progression trends
  • Individual charts for each student with their theme colors

• Practice Session Timeline: Aligned markers showing when students practiced

  • Blue squares indicate practice sessions that week (hover for detailed session info)
  • Opacity reflects session frequency - brighter squares = more practice sessions
  • Perfect horizontal alignment with proficiency chart to see cause-and-effect relationships

• Interactive Tooltips: Rich detail on hover

  • Proficiency charts: Exact word counts at each level for any week
  • Practice markers: Session count, words practiced, accuracy percentage, practice duration, and words per minute

Why This Matters:

Parents can now visually see the direct impact of consistent practice on learning progression. You’ll be able to identify:

• Which weeks showed the most improvement after intensive practice
• How gaps in practice affect proficiency progression
• Whether your child responds better to frequent short sessions or longer focused practice
• The optimal practice frequency for sustained learning gains

This feature transforms the “Coming Soon” placeholder into a comprehensive analytics dashboard that gives parents data-driven insights into their child’s learning patterns!

Smarter Word Suggestions with Explanations

The Auto Suggest feature now provides detailed reasoning for why each word was chosen, making it more educational and transparent for parents.

What’s New:

• AI reasoning: Each suggested word now comes with a brief explanation of why it was selected
• Review before adding: Parents can now see the suggested word and reasoning before deciding to add it
• Educational context: Parents can now understand how the AI considers their child’s age, learning history, and spelling patterns

The AI now explains things like “This word reinforces the ‘ight’ pattern they’ve been practicing” or “Builds on their success with compound words while introducing new phonetic patterns.”

Better Mobile Experience

Made improvements to the parent dashboard’s mobile layout, particularly the navigation sidebar which was previously broken on mobile devices.

What’s Fixed:

• Mobile navigation: Added a hamburger menu that actually works on phones and tablets
• Responsive sidebar: The sidebar now properly collapses and expands on mobile screens
• Better spacing: Adjusted padding and text sizes to be more readable on smaller screens
• Fixed layout issues: Content no longer overflows or breaks on mobile devices

The parent dashboard should now be much more usable on mobile devices, though there’s always room for further improvements!

Take Control of Review Session Length

Introducing session word limits - a new setting that gives parents complete control over how many words students practice in a single review session.

What’s New:

• Session Word Limit: Set a maximum number of words per review session (1-100, or leave blank for unlimited)
• Works with Daily Limits: Complements the existing daily new word limit for comprehensive control
• Main Review Mode Only: Applies only to structured review sessions, not practice or list-based modes

How it Works:

• Navigate to Account Settings > Learning Preferences
• Set your preferred “Session Word Limit” (optional)
• During review sessions, the session automatically ends when the limit is reached
• Students see accurate remaining word counts throughout their session
• Perfect for managing study time and preventing overwhelm

Example Use Cases:

• Time Management: Limit sessions to 10 words for quick 5-minute study breaks
• Attention Spans: Set lower limits (5-15 words) for younger students
• Focused Practice: Use higher limits (25-50 words) for intensive study sessions
• Flexible Learning: Leave unlimited for self-directed learners

Both the daily new word limit and session word limit work independently to give you precise control over your student’s spelling practice experience!

Personalized Audio Experience for Every Student

Introducing customizable audio auto-play preferences that let you tailor the spelling review experience for each student’s preference.

What’s New:

• Individual student preferences: Configure auto-play settings separately for each student
• Four audio playback options:
  • Play word only (default) - Just the word pronunciation
  • Play word, then sentence - Word first, followed by the sentence context
  • Play sentence, then word - Sentence context first, then the word
  • Play word, sentence, word - Full sequence for maximum reinforcement

How to Configure:

• Navigate to Parent Dashboard > Students > Edit student
• Select the preferred “Audio Auto-Play” option from the dropdown
• Settings apply immediately to all future spelling sessions for that student
• Students can still click the word or sentence buttons to replay audio as needed

Redesigned Parent Dashboard Experience

We’ve completely rebuilt the parent dashboard with a modern, intuitive interface that makes managing your students’ spelling progress easier than ever!

What’s New:

• Dedicated Parent Dashboard: Access via a new /parent-dashboard route with its own clean interface
• Enhanced Navigation: Breadcrumb navigation with easy “Back to Student Dashboard” access
• Improved Organization: Separate pages for Dashboard, Students, Stats, and Settings
• Better Student Management: Enhanced student cards with comprehensive progress tracking
• Advanced Analytics:
  • Visual mastery progression funnel showing learning journey
  • Priority alerts for words due for review
  • Recent activity feed with expandable session details
  • Milestone celebrations for streaks and achievements

New Features:

• Smart Priority System: Immediate alerts when students have words ready for review
• Activity Tracking: Detailed view of recent practice sessions with individual word results
• Progress Visualization: Clear progression from “Not Started” through “Mastered” levels
• Quick Actions: Direct access to word lists, spelling lists, and practice logs for each student
• Milestone Recognition: Automatic celebration of learning streaks and achievements

How to Access:

• Click “Switch to Parent Dashboard” from the student dashboard
• Use the breadcrumb navigation to switch between dashboards
• All your existing data and students remain exactly the same

This update represents a major step forward in making SpellCamp more parent-friendly while maintaining the powerful learning tools you love!

Never Miss a Review Session

Introducing automated email reminders exclusively for SpellCamp Premium members:

• Daily email notifications: Get reminded when your students have words ready for review
• Flexible email preferences: Choose between combined emails for all students or separate emails per student
• Smart timing: Reminders are sent at most once per day to avoid spam
• Customizable settings: Enable/disable and configure preferences anytime in your account settings

How it works:

• Premium users can enable email reminders in their account settings
• When students have words due for review, you’ll receive an email notification
• Emails include a summary of which students have words ready and sample words
• Click the link in the email to go directly to SpellCamp and start the review session

Premium Feature

Email reminders are part of our premium tier, designed to help busy parents stay on top of their children’s spelling practice. Free users can see the reminder settings but will be prompted to upgrade to access this feature.

Ready to never miss another review session? Upgrade to Premium to get started!

Improved Spelling Tip Quality

Introducing a new feedback system to help us continuously improve the quality of spelling tips:

• Thumbs up/down rating: Students can now rate spelling tips as helpful or not helpful
• Real-time feedback collection: Feedback is captured immediately after incorrect spellings
• Admin review system: Administrators can filter and review tips with negative feedback
• Quality improvements: Tips that receive negative feedback can be regenerated or manually improved

How it works:

• After misspelling a word, students see the spelling tip with subtle thumbs up/down icons
• Clicking provides instant feedback that helps improve future tips
• Feedback is saved when students click “Next Word” or “Try Again”
• Administrators can review feedback statistics and problematic tips in the admin panel

This system helps ensure that spelling tips remain helpful and educational for all students!

Easy Student Access

Introducing a simpler way for students to access their accounts without email addresses:

• Parent-generated login codes: Parents can generate secure 6-digit codes for their students
• Rate limiting protection: Built-in security to prevent brute force attempts
• Automatic expiration: Codes expire after use for enhanced security

How it works:

• Parents visit their dashboard and generate a login code
• Students enter the code on the login page
• Instant access to their spelling practice without needing email/password

Perfect for younger students who don’t have email addresses or struggle with password management!

Faster Spelling Review ⌨️

• Press Enter key to select the “Easy” button after a correct spelling
• Streamlines the review process for faster progress
• Perfect for keyboard-focused users

Enhanced Word History 📊

• Added “Recent Attempts” column for a quick view of last 10 attempts for every word in the parent dashboard
• See spelling patterns and progress at a glance
• Track improvement over time with visual history

Improved Spelling Feedback 🎯

• Improving accuracy and quality of feedback for misspelled words

Session Summary Reports 📝

• Comprehensive summary at the end of each spelling review session
• Detailed statistics on performance and progress
• Clear visualization of mastery level updates

Share Your Lists 🔗

Now you can easily share your spelling lists with other users:

• Generate a shareable link for any list
• Other users can import your list with one click
• Perfect for sharing between teachers or study groups

Session Summary Reports 📊

Get detailed feedback after each spelling session:

• See an overview of words practiced
• Track mastery level changes
• Review progress at a glance

Bulk Word Import 📋

Save time with our new bulk import feature:

• Copy and paste multiple words at once
• Add directly to your global word list
• Import directly into any spelling list
• Smart processing handles various formats
• Perfect for quickly importing class word lists

List Review Mode 📝

Now you can review specific lists while maintaining spaced repetition benefits:

• Review all ready-to-review words from a specific list
• Results count toward word proficiency levels
• Maintains the spaced repetition schedule
• Perfect for focused practice on specific word groups
• Available for Premium users

New Premium Features

We’re excited to announce our new premium features that make managing spelling words easier than ever!

Photo Import 📸

• Snap a photo of any word list
• Instantly import all words at once
• Smart text recognition and processing
• Save time avoiding manual word entry

Spelling Lists 📝

• Create personalized lists for each student
• Add existing words or create new ones
• Smart word suggestions based on patterns
• AI-powered word recommendations
  • Request words by grade level and pattern
  • Example: “Give me 10 2nd grade level words with ‘ai’ pattern”
  • Instantly generate appropriate word lists
  • Customizable quantity and difficulty

These new premium features are designed to save time and provide more personalized learning experiences for each student.

How do I get Premium?

• Premium features will be available for a small monthly fee
• Want it now? Just send me an email at neil@spellcamp.com.
• The first few to reach out will get it for free in exchange for feedback!

Faster Word Adding Experience ⚡

Made adding new words much more responsive with asynchronous processing:

• Words appear instantly in your list with a loading indicator
• Add multiple words rapidly without waiting
• Continue using the app while words process in the background
• Each word completes independently

This makes the process of adding new spelling words much smoother and faster, especially when adding multiple words at once.

Algorithm Improvements

• Fine tuned the spaced repetition timing algorithm on recent attempts
• Enhanced mastery level calculations
  • Added two new mastery levels
  • Increased sample size for better accuracy
• Improved practice word suggestion algorithms based on recent attempts

New Deep Dive Page

Added a new Features page that provides a deeper dive into how the site works.

New Proficiency Level

Added a ‘Not Started’ proficiency level for brand new words. Previously, words were incorrectly reported as ‘Approaching Mastery’ before any attempts were made.

Other Improvements

• Various bug fixes
• Security improvements

Practice Mode Launch 🎯

Students can now practice their words anytime without affecting their review schedule!

How it works:

• Access your complete word list at any time
• Words are selected randomly with smart weighting:
  • Higher priority for newly added words
  • More frequent appearance of words needing practice
• Practice as much as you want - it won’t impact your review schedule

Word Archive Feature 📦

Added a new archive action to the word list management system.

What happens when you archive a word:

• Removed from Spaced Repetition mode
• Removed from Practice mode
• Student history is preserved
• Mastery levels are maintained
• Can be unarchived at any time

All progress is preserved when words are archived or unarchived.