Spelling Creator

Spelling Creator is a web app for making Spelling lessons: lessons for people who communicate by pointing to letters on a letterboard or keyboard. It isn't tied to one method. Practitioners, parents and communication partners can use it however their own practice works. See What is Spelling Creator for more about who it's for and what "Spelling" covers.

You build a lesson in the editor: give it a title, add named sections, and fill each section with text, pictures, spelling words, questions and activities. When it's ready you can print it, download it as a Word document, save it to Google Docs, or publish it to the lesson hub for others to use. You don't need an account to start; see Your first lesson for a walkthrough.

See it in action

Building a lesson. A title, a section, text with ALL-CAPS spelling words, a picture from Wikimedia Commons, the spelling list filled in from those words with one click, a question, and the lesson in Preview.

Working in a finished lesson. A lesson forked from the hub, folded down to its outline, a section moved, a look at it as a reader sees it, and an export for Word.

There are more on the pages for the lesson hub, pull requests and live collaboration. The people in those are made up for the demos; the lessons are real ones from the hub.

Building a lesson

• Title and sections. Name the lesson at the top, then add sections with the round + button. Each new section is named as you add it.
• Text, pictures and spelling words. Add blocks of text, pictures (with a caption) and spelling lists to any section. Words you type in ALL CAPS can fill the spelling list in one click.
• Formatting, footnotes and sources. Text can be bold, italic or underlined, and footnotes can cite the lesson's sources or carry a note. The lesson ends with its Notes and Sources (see Formatting, footnotes & sources).
• Pictures. Search free pictures from Pixabay or Wikimedia Commons without leaving the editor, or upload your own. A picture's credit is kept separate from its caption, printed small underneath, and never read aloud (see Pictures).
• Questions. Add questions in eight color-coded types (see Question blocks).
• VAKT activities. Add a movement or sensory break to a section, printed in red with a "VAKT:" label, optionally with a picture and links. It's an instruction for whoever runs the lesson, not a question (see VAKT activities).
• Rearranging. Move sections and blocks up and down, or delete them. With a mouse or trackpad you can also drag a block by its handle, within a section or into another one, and the page scrolls by itself when you hold the block near the top or bottom of the window. On a touch screen, use the move buttons instead.
• Long lessons. Section headers stay in view as you scroll, questions are numbered within their section, any section can be folded away, and a list of sections beside the editor jumps straight to one (see Navigating large lessons).
• Preview. Press Preview to see the lesson exactly as a reader will, in the same place, and press Back to editing to return.
• Importing. Open a Word document or a lesson file, or paste a lesson written anywhere else and let the app read it (see Import from text).

Help from AI

• Writing help. Draft a block of text or a question from a section's title, or get lesson ideas for an age range (see AI writing help).
• Lesson checks. Press Check to look over a lesson for problems and suggestions (see Lesson checks).
• AI lesson fixes. Ask for a fix to a problem the checks found, see the change before and after, and decide whether to apply it (see AI lesson fixes).
• Fact checking. Compare numbers, dates and named facts in the lesson's text with sources such as Wikidata and Wikipedia (see Fact checking).

Using a lesson

• Printing and exporting. Download a Word document, print to PDF, or save the lesson to your Google Drive as a Google Doc (see Exporting & printing).
• Interactive mode. Work through a published lesson on screen, one step at a time, typing answers as you go. Answers are saved privately to your account, steps can be read aloud, and an unfinished run-through picks up where you left off (see Interactive mode).
• Summaries. Get a short summary of a published lesson, made on your own device, on devices that can run it (see Lesson summaries).
• Translation. Read a published lesson in your own language, translated on your device. Spelling words stay in the lesson's language, since they're what gets spelled (see Translation).

Sharing and working together

• Lesson hub. Browse lessons other people have published, open any of them, and publish your own once you're signed in. Sign-in is by an emailed link, no password (see Lesson hub & accounts).
• Comments and ratings. Discuss a published lesson and rate it from 1 to 5 stars. Comments can have formatting and links, and you can edit your own (see Comments & bios).
• Profiles. Pick a display name, write a short bio, follow other people, and see their activity on your home page (see Profiles).
• Notifications. A bell for replies, comments on your lessons, new followers and links people send you (see Notifications).
• Moderation. Tools for moderators to deal with comments and accounts (see Moderation).
• Live collaboration. Edit a lesson together in real time, with each other's cursors and a chat panel (see Live collaboration).
• Version history. Every change is saved as a version while you work, so you can look back through them and go back to any one. A copy (fork) of a lesson keeps the original's history and can bring in the original's later changes.
• Variations. Try changes on a separate copy of a lesson without touching the main one (see Variations).
• Pull requests. Offer the changes in your copy back to the lesson it came from. Nothing changes until its author agrees (see Pull requests).
• AI assistants. Connect an AI assistant such as Claude so it can write and edit lessons for you (see AI assistants).

Your lessons and your device

• Autosave. Your work is saved in your browser as you go.
• As many lessons as you like. The editor keeps every lesson you work on, listed on the On this device page. Opening, copying or importing a lesson adds it to the list instead of replacing what you were working on (see Lessons on this device).
• Install it, and use it offline. The app can be installed so it opens in its own window, and the editor, version history and exports keep working with no connection (see Install & offline use).
• Language. The app's own wording is English for now; more languages can be added later.

For how the app is built, see the developer overview.