Be it also duly noted that I *will* find a new, mellower template.


http://www.eslus.com/LESSONS/SPELL/SPELL11.HTM

Good in theory; has a sentence with a word missing, and an audio tape of the word. The audio isn't that good and of ocurse you don't hear it in the sentence; you just hear the word in isolation.

Okay, the audio is actually good; I think that the “they” was pronounced with that special extra enunciation - more like “tha-ee”.

Starts out with basic words but there doesn't seem to be rhyme or reason to their selection.

http://literacy.kent.edu/Midwest/Materials/ndakota/spelling/lesson1.html

** this one could be very useful to some folks: it starts out with common confusing homophones (accept and except, affect and effect). The fact that it calls these “homonyms” had me looking for an author, but its last update was 2003 so it's probably a typical education major. Growl. Good people: Homophones are words that sound the same. Homo means same, phone means sound. Different spelling. Homonyms are the same name (with possibly the same spelling, unlike the homophones) with different meanings, such as “lie.” Homophones would be the “accept and except” kinds of words. (Picky, I know, but if you're going to write spelling exercises, you should be picky. Drat, now I'm going to have to make sure I have all my favorite grinches look over what I've done and I'll still have at least one egregious, unforgivable mistake in there...)

http://www.spelling.hemscott.net/

This is “by an experienced English teacher,” but also lacks the structure necessary to help the truly struggling speller (and it claims to target strugglers). I was encouraged by seeing that the first lessons were on consonant blends – but then saw that the words chosen were, basically, any words with those blends. “blunder, broken, climate, cracker, dreadful” are the first five words; basically, we're supposed to memorize everything after the blend. Likewise for "shr" we've got "shriek" - which I wouldn't throw at you until we were talking about that i-before-e concept or at least the long e sound.
There are tips and a good strategy for memorizing those words – but it's likely to still be frustrating for struggling students who have trouble remembering that much at a time.