Introducing Adaptive Learning Programs: Personalized Spelling, Powered by Spaced Repetition

A new way to teach spelling in your classroom

We are excited to announce one of the biggest additions to Spelling Test Buddy since we launched: Adaptive Learning Programs.

Until now, most spelling in our platform has followed the familiar weekly rhythm: a teacher assigns a list, students practice, the class takes a test on Friday, and next week everyone moves on to a new list. That works, and it will keep working. But it leaves something on the table. Every teacher knows that the student who already knows “friend” does not need another week of “friend,” and the student still tripping on “rhythm” from two weeks ago needs to see it again.

Adaptive Learning Programs fix that. They give every student a personalized practice queue that updates automatically, every session, based on what that student actually needs.

What is an Adaptive Learning Program?

An Adaptive Learning Program is a long-running spelling program — you can think of it as a continuous practice track rather than a single week’s list. You choose a scope and sequence for the program: pick the word list(s) that make up the program, the number of words that are tested each day, and the student experience. From there, the platform takes over the day-to-day decisions:

• Each time a student practices, the system pulls a set of words tailored specifically to them.
• Words the student has clearly mastered fade into longer review intervals.
• Words they have missed (or have not seen in a while) come back sooner.
• Brand-new words are introduced at a steady, manageable pace.

No two students in the same classroom will see exactly the same practice session. They the words that are at the edge of their “personal forgetting curve”.

Powered by spaced repetition

The engine behind Adaptive Learning Programs is spaced repetition, a learning strategy with more than 130 years of research behind it. In short: information is reviewed at gradually increasing intervals, with each review timed for roughly the moment a student is about to forget. That moment of effortful retrieval is where memories get strongest.

If you want the full picture, we wrote a deep guide to the research and how it applies to spelling:

Spaced Repetition: The Science-Backed Strategy That Helps Students Actually Remember What They Learn

The short version: students who practice on a spaced schedule retain dramatically more, months later, than students who cram. The challenge has always been that no teacher has time to hand-schedule each student’s review list. Our Adaptive Learning Program does that bookkeeping for you.

What a session looks like

A student logs in and signs in like they normally do. If they are a part of an Active Learning Program, and they haven’t completed their session for the day, they will be given the option to continue it working on it. Behind the scenes, the system looks at every word that student has ever practiced, where each one sits on their personal forgetting curve, and what is coming next in the program’s sequence. It then assembles a session:

1. Initial test on the student’s personalized word set for today.
2. Practice with Teach Me, spelling games, and practice tests — all using that same personalized set.
3. Final test to close the loop.

Miss a word? It will resurface sooner. Correctly spell it repeatedly? It drifts into long-term maintenance review and makes room for something new. Teachers who want a shorter experience can opt into Test Only mode, which skips games and Teach Me and runs just the personalized test.

What teachers still control

Adaptive Learning Programs are designed to take bookkeeping off your plate, not to take instructional decisions away from you. You still:

• Pick the program. Use a pre-made scope and sequence (including options aligned with UFLI and phonics patterns) or build your own.
• Group your students. Different groups can run different programs at different paces.
• Watch the data. Progress reports show where each student is in the sequence, which patterns they are mastering, and which words keep tripping them up.
• Override anytime. You can still assign a one-off weekly list on top of the program when you want the whole class on the same words.

Who it’s for

Adaptive Learning Programs are a strong fit for:

• Elementary classrooms that want spelling practice to carry retention across weeks and months, not just to Friday.
• Sight Words / Heart Words, which don’t follow common spelling betters, just need rote memorization. Spelling Test Buddy with an Adaptive Learning Program is the perfect accompaniment to let students focus on these oddball words.
• Intervention and RTI settings, where students come in with very different starting points and need differentiated practice without a mountain of planning. (See also: Maximizing RTI Success With Digital Tools.)
• ESL and ELL classrooms, where students need more exposures to tricky words and benefit enormously from personalized pacing.
• Homeschool families running one program across multiple children at different levels.

New here? You can try everything — Adaptive Learning Programs included — free for 14 days:

We want your feedback

Adaptive Learning Programs are the biggest thing we have shipped in a while, and we expect to keep improving them based on what we hear from real classrooms. If you try it out and have thoughts — what works, what is confusing, what you wish it did — we would love to hear from you at support@spellingtestbuddy.com.

Personalized spelling, powered by the science of how memory actually works. That is what we have been building toward, and we cannot wait to see what your students do with it.