A grand grant

Just came back from a few delightful days at Yosemite National Park. With the fall air crisp and clear, and both the sunny days and full-moon nights sharing their light with the magnificent surroundings, grandeur was everywhere.
What is the difference between something grand and something big?
Something truly grand will not make you feel small, but instead inspire and empower you.

Just like Google did recently when they gave us a generous Google grant to promote Word Cup.
Google has been helping many non-profits get the word out about their work and the causes they serve. To be chosen for a grant has been really inspiring and has helped our event a lot.
It's been a grand grant indeed!

A Picture says it all... many pictures = an awesome learning tool!

We now have over 7,000 large color photographs enhancing our eSpindle resources.
What bliss! It is so much easier to understand and memorize words with the right visual support.

Our volunteers are still combing through Flickr in search of more images, and we anticipate that once we're done we'll have 12,000 images supporting our program.

If you haven't eSpindled lately, register for a free trial and see how it works!

A New Word Cup, More Powerful Than Ever

Friday will see the launch of Word Cup as part of the LitCam Live! Forum at the Frankfurt Book Fair. (12:00, Hall 4.2)

Word Cup is designed to harness the power of the Web to make good, maybe even amazing, things happen. Our goal is to grow the event into the largest literacy fundraiser on the Web.

With some generous support from Google and Amazon Web Services and great media partners like BetterWorldBooks, AromaLand and Helium.com, we're on our way...

People who participated in the last Word Cup will notice some profound differences - for one, Word Cup is now completely free!
Secondly, there are substantial prizes to be won. That is, if you support the Word Cup fund with a few dollars yourself.

Being a supporter qualifies you for lots of extra "Word Cup 2.0" prizes; plus, you'll help the Word Cup Literacy Fund grow. Come check out Word Cup's four literacy projects!

Reading First no effect on comprehension

I've been meaning to share this study with the eSpindle community for a while. I think it is very interesting:

No Effect on Comprehension Seen From 'Reading First'
By Kathleen Kennedy Manzo

The $6 billion funding for the federal Reading First program has helped more students “crack the code” to identify letters and words, but it has not had an impact on reading comprehension among 1st, 2nd, and 3rd graders in participating schools, according to one of the largest and most rigorous studies ever undertaken by the U.S. Department of Education.

While more time is spent on reading instruction and professional development in schools that received Reading First grants than in comparison schools, students in participating schools are no more likely to become proficient readers, even after several years with the extended instruction, the study found.

Among both the Reading First and comparison groups, reading achievement was low, with fewer than half of 1st graders, and fewer than 40 percent of 2nd and 3rd graders showing grade-level proficiency in their understanding of what they read. On a basic decoding test, however, 1st graders in Reading First schools scored significantly better than their peers.

The problem with literacy and academic achievement does not originate in students having problems learning 26 letters and corresponding phonemes.
The real problem is that they are not familiar with the words and the meaning they add to a sentence.

If I would get a dollar for ever teacher telling me that explicit vocabulary instruction and practice is no longer needed, I would be going on vacation today.
Who started the rumor students will somehow learn words by themselves?

Fact is that students from a disadvantaged background enter school with half the vocabulary of their more supported peers. This gap widens as the years progress, with 4th grade commonly being considered the critical year. If the lack in vocabulary skill and confidence is not remedied by 4th grade, the student is at high risk to fail academically, and to drop out of school.

So much for the sad news. The good news is that every student can build a strong vocabulary with efficient and targeted practice. eSpindle was designed to be that program, providing personalized learning sessions and unlimited support.

It is not uncommon that new members need an incredible amount of repetitions - sometimes 50-60!! - before a word is learned. Quite quickly, however, this number shrinks to around 5 as the student develops confidence and interest in words.

Why? Because the student was given the opportunity to figure out, at their own pace and time, that learning words is really not hard. It takes a bit of effort, yes, but it is not rocket science, and definitely something most everybody can manage to accomplish with the right support.

This understanding helps the brain to stop resisting the challenge and gain confidence.

International Literacy Day

The last few weeks have been hectic with the Word Cup finals under way, and the Word Cup Cafe under construction. It is not a coincidence that the last day of the Word Cup coincide with International Literacy Day.

Whenever I meet someone with high verbal aptitude (and I enjoyed meeting many over my four years at eSpindle Learning), I like to ask them:

How did it all start?
What made you become interested in language?
When did the reading bug bite, the need to write begin?

To this day, I still have yet to meet someone who would not directly trace the source of their verbal development to a person--a parent, a teacher, a relative--who enticed, encouraged, supported, challenged, acknowledged, and mentored them.
Chances are, you owe your appreciation for language to someone you respected, who invested time and energy introducing you to the World of Words. Who was this person/were these people for you?

The mere fact that you are reading blogs and surfing the internet as a reader likely means that years ago, there was someone who read to you, someone who challenged you to expand your vocabulary, someone who talked with you, who taught you to understand and appreciate nuances and different shades of meaning.

Can you imagine for a moment what would have happened if you had not been gifted with such support? Imagine for a moment that your parents and people around you were illiterate - and I use this term according to Mark Twain's interpretation of it, who said, "the man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can not read them."

You entered school proud and eager, but soon noticed that most kids knew words that you didn't - it was not your fault, but you felt ashamed and scared that you would be found out. You felt embarrassed, like something was "wrong" with you.
Fear and shame made learning words even harder, and sometimes it took you a long frustrating while to decipher simple sentences... you especially hated having to read out loud!! Books were scary, and when texts became too advanced, you tried to hide your panic behind "I don't care" attitudes... your growth stopped, and instead of searching opportunities you spent most of your time escaping problems.

Literacy is not a "hot" nonprofit cause.
It is not headline material like an epidemic disease, it is not gory and violent like war, it is not cute like them polar bears... no: advocating for literacy is nerdy.

It reeks of "schoolmasterness" and dusty books. The problem seems so vast, and the number of more immediate and more dramatic catastrophes so large, that it is easy to forget that many of our problems have their roots in this nearly invisible, inconspicuous cause.

What has literacy given you?
Could you share some of that plenty with the kids in your life?
Could you find the time to volunteer to help someone crack the code?
If you could put a price tag on what literacy has brought to your life - would you find yourself rich enough to share?

Today was the last day of the Word Cup, but we are continuing the literacy fundraising campaign until the end of the year.
Please stop by www.WordCupCafe.org and plant the seed of literacy for someone by making a donation.

And while you're there, welcome to the newly opened Word Cup Cafe!

Innovation... incubated

I just returned from the annual summit of SIIA, the Software and Information Industry Association, in San Francisco. It was an exciting event, with some of the best and brightest of the industry meeting to share ideas and learn from each other.
The beautiful Palace hotel felt like a bee hive, vibrant with great energy.

eSpindle Learning attended both as a CODiE award finalist (the CODiE is an award casually referred to as "the grammy" of the software industry), and as part of SIIA's Innovation Incubator program.

Ten interesting companies/projects had been selected for their innovative contribution in the realm of educational software. We were given the opportunity to showcase and present our work to the industry's veterans. The association went out of their way to support us (who for the most part were very young organizations) and to ensure we maximized the benefits of the event. I'm looking back with a deep feeling of gratitude.

One of the fun little fringe benefits of being part of the innovation incubator program was getting to walk around with a little purple flag on my name tag that said "innovator."

Promptly, I was stopped by a business owner in the software and content part of the conference (which is a different track from the education community) who asked me - "So, what does someone have to do to get to wear an ’innovator‘ badge?"

I replied "Work 60-80 hours per week for 4 years, pay yourself a salary that is a third of what it was before you became obsessed with your idea, constantly push and challenge yourself..."

"Oh," he said, laughing, "I guess I don't want innovation that badly..."

As we continued talking, he learned that eSpindle Learning was a nonprofit, and that threw him off even more. "If you are working so hard," he said, "don't you want to become rich, too?"
"You don't understand," I replied, "I'm as rich as anyone could get already. A bit more money would be great, but aside from that, I'm very, very rich." :-)

It's a happy new year...

2008 is starting well for eSpindle: A few days ago we received a Learning Magazine’s 2008 Teacher’s Choice Award for the Family.

Isn’t it pretty? ;-)

At the same time the membership report came in. Overall, our membership revenues increased by 270%, and we fulfilled our goal of giving away 5,000 eSpindle scholarships to disadvantaged students in 2007.
These scholarships, once established, are kept live for as long as they are used by the student, giving an unparalleled tool for personal improvement to those struggling with vocabulary.

The most significant news for me personally was that the ratio of members who renewed beyond their first year term increased by nearly 9%; an improvement that is quite impressive, considering that even last year the majority of members decided to renew after the first year.

A big thank you to all those who have been part of building eSpindle – those who volunteered, contributed, provided feedback and believed in this unique project, especially those who provided precious support when eSpindle was nothing but a vision.

Nonprofit? Business? Both?

Every once in while we meet people who respond to us with a peeved “how can you be a nonprofit, you act like a business!” The next line tends to be – “if you’re a nonprofit, why aren’t your services free?”

Unfortunately “free” simply does not exist, not even for nonprofits. What’s “free” to you is free at the expense of someone else – a sponsor hoping for positive publicity, a foundation channeling funds to serve its intended purpose, a government agency distributing tax dollars, a donor hoping to make a difference, a volunteer committing time and sweat. And the more “free” services nonprofits offer, the more dependent they become on the charity of these participants.
There is a saying in German - “Only death is free, and it will cost you your life.”

eSpindle is aiming to create a self-sustaining system that empowers our public benefit mission without depending on donations and grants.The business-nonprofit hybrid model you see at work in eSpindle is also commonly referred to as social entrepreneurship.

As you can easily imagine, the development effort behind eSpindle was tremendous.
Custom editing a 100,000 word database (including live recording single words and about 20,000 sample sentences), developing a refined and now patent-pending technology to provide the highly differentiated instructional technology, and building a name in the world of education, all required and still involves a team of brilliant people contributing their unique talents along with lots of time.

Honoring this effort we decided, from the start, to accept the challenge of growing and sustaining the organization by “real world” rules – the rules of the market place. And fortunately, our unique application allows us to do this because it is of value to a diverse audience – both those who can easily pay $80-100 for a year of tutoring, and those who can’t.

By incorporating both for-profit and non-profit best practices we believe that eSpindle will be a stronger organization in the long term, than if we allowed reliance on the comfort and protection of charity grants.

Contrary to common perception, nonprofits are free to do anything a regular business does – including selling products and services, licensing, collaborating with both for-profit and non-profit ventures, etc.

The main difference is that nobody at eSpindle owns the company or any surplus created. Every effort we undertake is focused on our mission:

To empower people by helping them build a broad vocabulary as a foundation for critical thinking, confident communication and success in life.

From the start we have committed to match every paid membership with a free license to a disadvantaged student, and our current ratio (of which we are very proud of) is six scholarships per paid membership.

These free licenses are given to other nonprofits, literacy organizations and title 1 schools who approach us for help, and if you have ever seen the challenges that students in underserved neighborhoods face, you will know why we are delighted to support teachers who dedicate themselves to making a difference for these students.

Cna yuo raed tihs?

Have you seen this email that has been circulating for quite a while now?

***

fi yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid too.

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mind! Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno’t mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae.
The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm.
Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? Yaeh, and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!

***

It's impossible to count how many times someone has forwarded me this email. If emails could smirk, this one would, especially because of the triumphant "Yeah, and I always thought spelling was important!"

When developing the eSpindle concept I spent a lot of time reviewing current research about spelling, reading, writing and the workings of the human brain, and to me, this email proves something completely different:
We not only write, but also read based on Mental Orthographic Images (MOI), so to get really familiar with a word's writing convention is very, very important.

This email proves that most people do not read using phonics, rules, or root words. If we did, we could indeed not read this text unless we went through lengthy decoding.
Phonics, spelling rules and even root word knowledge are great intellectual tools that can help us decipher a word when we get "stuck" – they are not, however, the stuff that good readers and writers are made of.

Fluent reading – just like writing - is driven by the brain's library of MOI, an immense collection of visual imprints of words created as the brain memorizes written words.

As you probably know, a good speller is likely to write based on "looks right" decisions (unless s/he is dyslexic – see below).

What this little entertaining email proves is that MOI actually drive our reading as well – by supporting the brain by zipping through the text based on "looks like" decisions and content-based associating.

If the mind uses MOI for reading ("looks like") as well as writing ("looks right"), then this would mean that focused word instruction – teaching the successful formation of MOI – is actually dramatically more important than is currently acknowledged.

Sometimes people ask us why we have such a "ridiculous" large entry field in our quizzes – it was very purposefully designed that way to support the successful formation of MOI.

The number of people that can read this and why they can

Some versions of this email state that "only 55 out of a hundred can," others say that everyone is able to read the text.

After showing this text to readers of all ages and education levels, I have concluded that while not everyone can read the text, clearly more than 55% of the population can.
Dyslexics and people who read little have severe trouble figuring it out, and normally give up after a few words.

The speed by which someone "gets it" seems to directly correlate to the speed they normally read.
People who read a lot and effortlessly can read this instantly, albeit still at slower than their normal speed.
People who always read slowly take longer and get "stuck" on words frequently.
The most common "stopper" is the word phaonmneal (phenomenal) in the second paragraph, an advanced vocabulary word that someone of low literacy skills is often not familiar with.

Apparently the brain pulls up words from its memory bank based on the first and last letters, its expectation based upon context, and other factors like length of word, number of upper- and lower-length extensions, etc.

It's a much more advanced decoding process than unraveling words going from left to right, letter by letter, which is our traditional understanding of "reading."

It is an amazing processing task, and gives us a little glimpse into the vast potential of the powerful supercomputing organ we shelter within our cranium.

People tend to respond to this email saying – "I didn't know I was that smart," "seems like I'm a genius," or "I would have never thought I could to this."
Why do people go through school not learning this basic truth - that their capacities are so vast, close to limitless?

When will our students be taught to understand that they do possess the tools to do anything they want, if only they dedicate the time and energy it takes to develop the skill to use them?

I have received three versions of this text: One credits "a researcher" at Cambridge University, others an Oxford scientist. Newer versions talk about an "English university."

After fruitless research I was unable to link this email to any of these two universities, and so assume that this email is the work of a rather informal "researcher." If so, thank you, dear unknown creator, for providing such a strong and compelling experiment!

If someone is more successful in actually locating the scientific research producing this piece, please let me know! I would be curious to see what kind of conclusions and observations were drawn from this experiment.

Historically, learning was hammered into students' minds in an authoritarian, rote and all-around frustrating way, not leaving much room for creative and critical thinking, or individualized instruction. Older generations remember spelling instruction as frustrating and discouraging, or at the very best, boring.

Then research discovered that dyslexics, who performed badly on the weekly spelling test, were able to navigate around their problems when they were taught phonics and spelling rules – so the conclusion was to throw out the old memorization routines and teach spelling through teaching phonetic patterns and grouping words by these patterns or rules.

What this ignored, however, is that the vast majority of students form MOI easily and reliably if taught in an intelligent and focused fashion.
The logic-based approach that works so great for dyslexics does not serve other students – because they read and write based on MOI, not based on a logical, analytical process.

A lot of students, especially strong visual learners, will pick up the majority of words while reading, with minimal need for explicit spelling instruction. What strong visual learners will have to work on is overcoming false MOI they may have formed unconsciously, for example when presented with workbooks with misspellings in their instructions (there should be a law prohibiting this!).

Many students, unfortunately, are left without the assistance they need. They are not served by the rule-based instruction initially designed for dyslexics, because they are not dyslexic. And for a variety of reasons, they may no longer get the targeted instruction they need to successfully form their MOI database.

While all they really need is just a bit of additional targeted practice, they often simply do not get enough coaching to truly "get it."

Their discomfort with words soon affects their reading and writing.
They get frustrated, write and read less, fall further behind in building their MOI library, and soon notice that their peers read and write faster, understand context better, and learn more effortlessly.
Humans quickly feel "behind" or not smart enough, a scary feeling which causes many to give up, leaving them heading for educational disaster.

Our very human existence is linked to words, and more and more to the written word. Let's make sure that everyone has a broad and complete word foundation for confident communication and success in any field!

Spelling or Advanced Word Tutor

eSpindle started out as a program strongly focused on spelling.
Now a more advanced tutoring module is available as well that challenges you to find of the right word first.

After selecting "advanced word tutor" on the preferences page, the quiz will no longer provide instant audio for the word in question.

Instead you're simply presented with the number of letters the word contains, and may then request the first and last letter of the word.

These clues, along with the definition and sample sentence will challenge you to actively find the right word without actually hearing it.
You can then click the "hear word" button to verify your answer.

We hope you'll enjoy this version as well and let us know what you think, please!

Words - Coins of Thought

Thank you to Michelle for forwarding an article by Washington Post writer Michael Skube, titled Writing Off Reading.
This quote summarizes the essence of his observations:
"If words are the coin of their thought, they [college students] are working with little more than pocket change."

An interesting read for everyone concerned about declining reading and writing skills. Could the underlying cause be as simple as schools no longer teaching words?

My daughter's school books teach vocabulary via multiple choice. Most school books I've seen operate on a similar basis, and most everyone can get through these exercises without breaking a sweat.
But does this mean that the students will own these words?
Will they know them enough to have them available for both fluent reading and writing?
Are these words going to "come to them" with ease and without slowing down their train of thought?
Is it enough to recognize a word, or is it important to be able to recall it, to know what it means, how it sounds, how it is written?

Recently I had a conversation in a charming little cafe, Coffee Catz, in my hometown, Sebastopol.
A few tables away from mine, an elderly man and a young woman just discovered that they both worked in college education, and both specialized in teaching remedial English.

After they had compared notes about how difficult, even impossible, it was for some students to make the cut, because they were "disadvantaged," and how one had to be satisfied with even little progress, their conversation trailed off, at which point I introduced myself.

"Overhearing your conversation," I said, "and understanding that you are experienced in teaching remedial English courses to college students, I am very interested to learn how much of the problems you are facing are related to basic word knowledge, in your opinion."

When I said "word knowledge" the young woman abruptly turned around in her chair so she no longer faced me.
The older man took on a condescending tone, the one you use to explain to someone ignorant that she has just committed a crime against political/social/overall correctness.

"No...," he said, "I mean, maybe, but we don't teach vocabulary, that is outdated. The only way we teach words is by providing them in context."

"That's great, but what about students who are not served by that? Students, who are in your remedial courses because they simply do not have a sufficient vocabulary? How do you provide further study for words that surface as problematic in the context of your instruction?"

"Oh, they'll somehow get it at some point."

"What if they don't? Do you have a way to know? How do you make sure they get the assistance or tutoring they need? What assistance is provided to students where lack of word skill is indeed the source of the problem?"

"No," he said with a tone that meant you're just not cool enough to get this, "we just DON'T TEACH words!
Well, we tell them simply not to use big words. It's good style anyway to express your thoughts with the small and simple ones. There is no need for all these complicated words anyway. Anything that's important can be said simply."

"Oh," I said. As a matter of style, I happen to agree. But would you want to experience a reduced vocabulary as a limitation in your own life, I wondered?
How much would you enjoy reading academic texts, or even the New York Times laying on your table, if your vocabulary was limited to the simple, short words? How would your own life have evolved if you had to operate on a minimal vocabulary, because your teachers said that was "good enough" for you?

"Plus," he said, a slight smile on his face, "our students are not going to do it anyway, they wouldn't think it's fun. Maybe the Asians, or ESL students, but not our regular English students."

Conversations like these leave me sad and aggravated; I've heard these type of statements too many times:

"We don't teach words."
"We don't require our students to be able to spell."
"We only teach in context." (Or - "We only teach phonics.")
"Somehow they'll be fine."
"Students won't do it anyway."

Oh, what convenient statements!
So much easier than getting down to the nitty-gritty of making sure that students not only carry "pocket change" but a wealth of vocabulary with them into their lives.
Or insisting that they work on building their language foundation, which is truly their foundation in life - regardless of whether they think it's "fun" or not.

Could you, dear reader, imagine living in a world where communication depended solely upon context?
How would it feel to walk around without fluency in your own native tongue?
What are your favorite books? Who are your favorite authors? What would the world be like for you if those questions left you blank and speechless?
If we respond to these questions with a shrug, what will become of this language we love?

If we don't build students' active vocabulary skills, reading and writing skills will continue to decline. ("Duuh!" my daughter said, reading this. How come this is obvious to a 12 year old, but not to our educational system?)

I come from a country, Germany, where books were once burned on a gigantic scale. Fueling the fires was the thought that all people needed to know was what they were told by the system.

In modern society, such drastic steps are no longer needed to keep people from thinking critically and leave them disenfranchised.
Leave the books on the shelves!
Post them on the Internet!
With students who grow up in a culture that tells them learning words is not really important, that they are fine with multiple-choice level vocabulary skills and a spell checker, and that everything is about "having fun," books are no longer dangerous.
Why burn them? Just let them gather dust.

Add words, practice words

We have added some additional functionalities that let you temporarily disable words that you manually added to your account.

Many times people create or locate a word list they want to study, and upload them all at once.

The problem here is that eSpindle will always quiz words added with priority, so if you upload a long list, it will take weeks before the quizzes actually turn to practicing words that you misspelled.

The new functionality allows you to upload a large list at once.

Next, check all of the words with the new button provided and disable them. Then, enable just a few every week to make sure the student also gets to work on the practice words to really memorize words that were hard before.

And please don't forget to submit your list to our word list swap!

By doing so you help us build a library that will help other students as well!

Supercalifragilistic... !

We just completed another database upload, adding over 700 new words.

Our commitment to support this program with a database that represents pretty much the entire English language constantly keeps us on our toes, searching for new words, recording live those that could stand improvement, editing the accompanying information.

Every time one of our members adds a word that is not found in the database, we receive a call for evaluation. Many times the word was left out because it was not the base form of a word (dreams or dreaming instead of "dream").
Such variations are frequently not included, unless they are irregular.

Often the word is not found because it is misspelled or does not exist (as per Merriam-Webster and other lexical authorities). Sometimes it is a real find - a word that is not yet in our database, but should be.
One of the new words that now adorns our precious word collection is Mary Poppins' famous song title Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

The only reason why a project of eSpindle's dimensions is possible is the advanced technology of TTS (Text-To-Speech), and the good sound quality it now provides. We refer to our computer voice as "Mike," and Mike does amazingly well on most challenges, breezing through the bulk of words and sample sentences errorfree and even attempting that certain human sounding modulation.

Want to hear how Mike, the computer voice, says supercalifragilisticexpialidocious? - http://www.espindle.org/audio/words/97757.mp3.

Pretty impressive, hm ;-)?

By the way, this is what Wikipedia has to say about the meaning of this word, which is one of the longest words of the English language:

"The word itself has obscure origins, pertaining as to when it was first used, but the roots are fairly clear, as Richard Lederer wrote in his book Crazy English:

super- "above," cali- "beauty," fragilistic- "delicate," expiali- "to atone," and docious- "educable," the sum meaning roughly "Atoning for extreme and delicate beauty while still being highly educable."

This is the perfect word for Mary Poppins to use, being that she thinks of herself as incredibly beautiful but also extremely intelligent, which makes up for it."

In response to adding supercalifragilisticexpialidocius to our database, I received this little sentence in my email box from one of our editors (thanks, Sandi!).
This sentence is of unknown origin. It goes like this:

Imagine a holy man, who walks barefoot most of the time, producing an impressive set of calluses on his feet. Many times, such a mystic will also eat very little, which makes him rather frail, and his minimal diet may lead to bad breath.

This would make him - are you ready for this? -

A "super calloused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis."

Why this hasn't been done before

Why has a concept like eSpindle never been attempted?
Will one of the educational software giants step up and copy our concept?

Answer:
Unlikely.
It has not been done because it is not likely to be sustainable for a for-profit company.
Designing limited units of study is profitable, but a vast and on-going project like eSpindle is a tremendous and risky undertaking.
It is a project fit for the Internet Age and thrives on lots of visionary spirits coming together and pitching in to make it happen – not for a for-profit company focusing on its bottom line.

eSpindle is made possible through the support of a large network of volunteers and supporters.
At its core is a vast and growing database that currently encompasses about 100,000 words – that is most every word of the English language in its base form, including about 30,000 words that are considered “Spelling Bee words.”

Only with such a tremendous foundation is it possible to power a learning experience that is ongoing and can accommodate learners of varying and developing skill levels – that will accommodate most any word that you may request when uploading word lists for priority study.

Were we to offer eSpindle in CD format, our members would currently have to load 18 CDs of data into their computers to install the database supporting this project – and eSpindle’s resources are constantly growing and evolving.

Just the audio license by itself (which is provided to eSpindle by one of our sponsors) would make it impossible for a for-profit company to offer such a resource without making access prohibitively expensive.
Add to that the custom edits needed to make sure our brief definitions do not give away the word to be spelled; adding sample sentences; proofing the audio generated by Mike, the computer voice.
Who can count the hours needed to live record all entries Mike does not get right, editing, and proof-editing them – plus all the other ongoing expenses associated with running a large Web project?

A project of these dimensions can only be accomplished as a community attempt, and is fueled and sustained by our volunteers, supporters, and membership contributions.

It is only possible because people from all walks of life are joining this project – as volunteers, members, and contributors and are helping out in any form they can.
You’re making it all possible!
Thank you for helping us create our innovative, amazing, wonderful eSpindle!
It is a tremendous, exciting undertaking. With your support, the sky is the limit!

How eSpindle got started

My days are filled with talking to people:
Introducing our program, answering questions, establishing partnerships. The one thing everyone wonders about - How come a non-native English speaker has created an English Word Tutor?
Someone who is not an English teacher or enmeshed in the educational system? Someone who may be caught mixing in a German word here or there (I grew up in Germany and still speak German with my daughter) and who sports a pretty strong accent?
Someone who loves words, but is by no means an English language expert?

The answer: eSpindle somewhat happened to me.
The idea came to me in a rather casual way, while helping my daughter learn her spelling words.
Have you ever had an idea that just doesn't want to go away?
No matter how often I discarded it, the idea for eSpindle kept coming back, bringing with it the allure of the new and the temptation of a great adventure... When the idea for eSpindle started to take roots in my mind, I was VP for Sales and Marketing at AromaLand, an Aromatherapy and Spa company based in Santa Fe - a stimulating and creative job that I could attend to from my home in California, with lots of flexibility and a regular paycheck.
Oh, no, I had no use at all for this idea that started flirting with my imagination.

But my unwanted idea kept coming back to me, persistent, nagging.
Pointing out news about students struggling with vocabulary, or dropping hints about how this "good" idea could be turned into a "great" idea. Reminding me of how I had struggled to learn English as a foreign language without having proper audio support, how it would help my daughter and so many more students - I started researching, looking for that very solution that I wanted to see.
The more I reviewed what was available, the more aggravated I became.

I saw programs using misspellings of words (a pedagogic sin according to brain research), lots of programs where parents were asked to record and enter information for the words to be quizzed (gee, that certainly helps a lot!) and programs that focused on limited word units, normally comprising between 50 to a few hundred words. The largest program I encountered featured 1,000-some words, but was unaffordable for most students. Just looking at the class of my daughter, I saw struggling ESL students next to book-devouring word whizzes who delighted in learning new words.
How could these students be served with uniform, unit-based study?
It was obvious that what was currently offered was patchwork at best, and a complete let-down for a lot of the students, especially the bright and the struggling.

The part that surprised me was that most programs I found on the Internet were basically virtual translations of text books into online format.
A little bit of animation was added here or there, teddy bears and butterflies, but it seemed like their designers either did not understand or did not care for the new opportunities powered by the Internet and computer technologies.
And slowly, "the" idea became "my" idea. I started talking with other parents about it, and received enthusiastic feedback and support.
Yes! Why wasn't there a better tool to help students memorize new words?
Why were we still doing good ole' spelling word lists with our kids in the age of information technology?
And what about families where parents did not have the time, resources or skills to tutor their children?
Why were teachers still wasting time and resources on spelling tests, which are long proven to not be very effective at all?
And wasn't it a shame to have a large number of students go through school without every learning how to read and write with confidence?

Now that my idea had convinced me of its necessity, I let it occupy the "guest room" in my brain, not really knowing what to do with it. Then, a friend of a friend introduced me to an educational software development firm, their quote sounded okay, a network of editors, writers and English teachers formed, I cracked my piggy bank and found myself tempted to trade my job for my calling...

There was only one more question left:
If the idea was so important and splendid, why had nobody done it yet? Well, it is late at night right now, and I will write about that a bit more in my next blog…