Why a honeycomb?

A school spelling test works like this. Someone says a word, uses it in a sentence, and you write it down. Honey Spell keeps that, and gives each word a row of honeycomb cells, one per letter. Spell it and the cells fill with honey, and a flower grows in the garden below.

Mistakes are part of it. When a letter is wrong, only that cell turns pink, and the right letters stay as honey. You see exactly where the word went off track, fix that spot, and try again. The only cost is a star.

What it practises

Honey Spell practises listening to a word and spelling it from memory. It starts with short words where each letter makes one sound and ends with words that catch plenty of grown-ups.

Spellings are British, the standard taught in Singapore schools: colour, favourite, centre, travelled.

A bit of real spelling history

Spelling matches were popular in American schools and towns in the 1800s. Noah Webster’s spelling books, which taught generations of American children to read and spell, often get some of the credit. The contests came to be called spelling bees. Bee was already used for other gatherings where neighbours got together over a shared job, such as quilting bees and husking bees.

The first national spelling bee in the United States was held in Washington in 1925, organised by the Louisville Courier-Journal newspaper. Nine children reached the final. The winner was 11-year-old Frank Neuhauser, who spelled gladiolus.

Webster is also the reason color and colour both exist. His dictionaries in the early 1800s favoured shorter spellings such as color and center. He didn’t invent them. He picked them from spellings already in use, and they stuck in the United States. Britain kept colour and centre, and most Commonwealth countries follow the British way. In Singapore, English teachers are trained to teach British spelling, and the Ministry of Education has said schools accept American spelling as long as a pupil sticks to one style.

The eight garden beds

• 1. Seedling: three-letter words with one sound per letter, such as cat, hen and mum.
• 2. Sprout: letter teams, such as ship, chick, bath and duck.
• 3. Leaf: long vowel sounds, such as cake, rain, tree and night.
• 4. Bud: tricky everyday words, such as said, friend, because and laugh.
• 5. Bloom: two-beat words, such as garden, rabbit and pencil.
• 6. Hive: silent and double letters, such as knight, thumb, island and scissors.
• 7. Honey: British spellings, such as colour, neighbour, jewellery and pyjamas.
• 8. Queen Bee: the hardest ones, such as separate, Wednesday and mischievous.

Each bed has 18 words, and a round picks six you haven’t seen much yet. All beds are open, so start wherever suits the speller.

How to play

• Tap Hear it to hear the word and a sentence with it. Tap it again, or tap Slower, as often as you like.
• Spell the word with the letter tiles or a keyboard, then tap Check.
• Right letters turn to honey. Pink cells need fixing. After three tries, the bee fills in a letter for you, so every word can be finished.
• Peek shows the whole word for a moment, then hides it so you can spell it yourself.
• A sunflower means right first time, a daisy means you fixed it, and a sprout means you had help.
• Stars per round: ★★★ for 5 or 6 words right first time, ★★ for 3 or 4, ★ for finishing.
• Earn 3 stickers in this game for your QuickBOP sticker book.

Tips for parents

Let them listen again. Hear it and Slower never cost a star. Saying the word together first can help a child hear each sound.

Use Peek on purpose. Look at the word, let it hide, then spell it from memory. It costs the star for that word, and it turns a stuck moment into practice.

Visit the Try-again pot. Words that needed help are saved on this device. They come back in later rounds of the same bed, and the pot lets you practise them on their own. A word leaves the pot when it is spelled right first time.

Pick the voice. The game uses a British-style English voice when your device has one. If it sounds odd, choose another in Settings.

Your turn

The bee is waiting by the empty comb in the Seedling bed. Turn your sound on, tap Hear it, and see how many flowers you can grow.