Hear it
RECOGNISEListen, then find the word among believable spelling mistakes.
Spelling practice, five minutes at a time
Spelling that feels like a walk, not a worksheet.
Spell Trail is a free spelling app for children in grades 1 to 8, roughly ages 6 to 14. Short five-minute trails draw on six tiers of hand-written words or this week's list from school, and missed words come back until they stick. No ads, no account, no trial, and it stays free.
About 5 minutes · Works in any modern browser
Listen & spot
Which spelling is right?
Hear the word, then choose its spelling.
Short enough to finish, spaced enough to stick
How does a trail work?
The whole design assumes a child who has ten minutes before dinner and no patience for a loading screen.
Pick a trail
Six tiers of sixty-four words, or this week's list from school. Each trail draws from the pool, so replaying a tier gives a mostly different set.
Walk it
Eight or so questions, each in the mode that suits the word. Recall checkpoints — where the whole word has to be produced from scratch — are spaced evenly rather than saved for the end.
Miss one? It comes back.
Once before the trail ends, one step easier. Then it waits at review camp until it's been answered cleanly twice.
Five ways to ask
From recognising a word to spelling it alone.
Each trail moves between three kinds of practice, choosing the format that suits the word and stepping down when a little more support would help.
Build it
UNDERSTANDFill a missing chunk or assemble the word one useful piece at a time.
Recall it
REMEMBERType the whole word from memory when it is ready for a real checkpoint.
Review camp
A word can be right ten times and still have been missed this morning.
A missed word returns once before the trail ends, then waits at review camp. Two clean answers move it back out, so practice follows the words that need it instead of chasing a total score.
Missed → back in the same trail
One step easier than the mode that caught it.
Then it waits at camp
Shown on the trail map only when there's something in it.
Two clean answers to leave
Second looks count for review, but never for the streak or accuracy.
"I don't know" on every question
An honest out beats a wild guess, and it's scored as a miss either way.
Privacy
What does Spell Trail collect about my child?
Nothing. Not "nothing important" — there is no account to collect it against. Progress lives in the browser on the device, and that's the whole system.
No accounts, no sign-upNo email, no password, no profile on a server. Nothing to delete because nothing was made.
No ads, no trackersNo third-party scripts. Even the fonts are self-hosted so they can't phone home.
Backup is opt-inA grown-up asks for it and gets a code like
otter-sequoia-thicket-3341. That code is the only key — and the app says so plainly.
Deletable, and it expiresBackups can be removed from the same panel, and untouched ones expire after two years.
For grown-ups
Set it up once, then stay out of the way.
This week's spelling list
Paste it in, one per line or comma-separated. Use word: sentence to
supply your own sentence. The app syllabifies each word and generates its
decoys, so a bare list still plays every mode.
Up to six players
One device, six children, separate progress, badges, word lists, and companions. Each has their own trail length — 3, 5, 8, 12, or 16 words.
Pick a better voice
Browsers default to the oldest, most robotic voice installed. Spell Trail scores the available ones and picks the best — and you can override it.
Nothing is locked
Fireflies buy cosmetic trail companions and nothing else. No word, tier, or feature is ever gated behind a currency or a purchase.
Questions parents ask
Is it really free, and is it really ad-free?
The short answers are yes and yes. The longer ones are below, because a lot of "free" spelling sites are free for a week and full of ads afterwards.
Is Spell Trail really free?
Yes, completely. There is no trial, no subscription, no premium tier, and nothing to unlock. Every word, tier, and question mode is available from the first visit. The code is open source under the AGPL, so that promise can be checked rather than taken on trust.
Are there ads?
No. Spell Trail has no advertising, no ad network, and no third-party scripts. Even the fonts are self-hosted so nothing on the page phones home. The only outside request the app makes is a cookieless page-view count from Cloudflare, which is disclosed on the app's privacy page.
Does my child need an account?
No. There is no sign-up, email, or password. Progress is saved in the browser on the device you use. If you want to move it to another device, a grown-up can ask for an optional backup code.
What ages is Spell Trail for?
The built-in words run from grades 1 to 8, roughly ages 6 to 14, in six tiers from Base Camp to Expedition Peak. Younger or older children can use their own word list, so the app fits whatever list came home from school.
Can I use my child's school spelling list?
Yes. Paste this week's words in, one per line or comma-separated. Spell Trail breaks each word into syllables and writes plausible misspellings for it, so a plain list plays every question mode.
Can I print the words?
Yes. Under Players & word lists, a grown-up can print a practice sheet, a written test with the answers on a separate page, or a plain word list for the fridge, from any school list or built-in level. Once the words are in, practice does not need a screen.
Does it work on an iPad, a Chromebook, or a phone?
Yes. Spell Trail runs in any modern browser with nothing to install. The read-aloud voice comes from the device's own speech synthesis, so it works on iPads, Chromebooks, Android tablets, and laptops.
Can more than one child use it?
Yes. Up to six players share one device, each with separate progress, badges, word lists, and trail companions.
Who makes Spell Trail?
Wishful Coders, a one-person studio in Colorado run by a parent. It builds ad-free, privacy-first apps for families and publishes the code for all of them. Spell Trail is supported by donations, not by advertising or by selling data.
Open source, on purpose
The code is on GitHub. All of it.
The complete code is public, so families and contributors can verify the privacy promises on this page, suggest improvements, and see exactly how the app works.
⚖️ AGPL-3.0
💼 Commercial license available
📚 384 hand-authored words
🍃 React + one Cloudflare Worker