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SpellChamp! User Guide |
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Copyright © 2004 Leading Step, Inc. |
Contents
SpellChamp! Overview SpellChamp! OverviewWelcome to SpellChamp! SpellChamp! helps you learn and practice spelling words using four different games, each one a little more challenging than the last. Over 5,800 of the most frequently used words are already defined to use in creating spelling groups. SpellChamp! helps parents, teachers, or students create groups using specific word criteria such as matching letters or using any of sixteen spelling rules and ten categories of words to help select the words you want. Spelling rules include things such as words that change a y to an i before adding a suffix or words that follow the i before e except after c rule. Categories include things like homophones, sight words, and compounds words. Teachers can define spelling groups and beam them out to students so they can practice their words through the week. Four different games and a Final Review lead you from recognizing the correct spelling to being able to spell the words on your own. Choose the Spelling gives three different spellings to choose from and let's you select the correct one. Word Scramble shows the letters of the word scrambled up and you put them in the right order. Fill in the Blanks shows how many letters are in the word and you fill in the correct letters. And finally, Spell the Word just gives you a blank and let's you see if you can spell the word all on your own. When you think you're ready, you can test yourself by taking the Final Review. It gives you each word once with no hints so you can see how well you've learned the words. SpellChamp! also tracks how many times you've guessed each word correctly and helps you work on those you're having trouble with by automatically selecting them more often for the games. You can view your scores for each game or monitor how you're doing with each of the words in a group so you'll know where you need to concentrate. You can also see how you've done with the Final Review for each group. Getting StartedTo start the SpellChamp! application, select the SpellChamp! icon from the Applications Launcher. This will display the SpellChamp! main screen. On this screen, tapping on the Select A Game button will allow you to select both which game you want to play and which spelling group you'd like to use. Once you're happy with the game and spelling group you've chosen, you can either review the words in the group or start a new game. At least one spelling group must be defined before you can play a game. The name of the currently selected group is displayed at the top of the main screen or it will indicate that no groups have been defined. To define a group, tap on the Select A Game button. Game ControlsThe Game Controls screen, like the one shown here, allows you to select which type of game you want to play, which spelling group you want to use, and the number of questions you want to have in the game. |
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Select which type of game you'd like to play by tapping on the current game displayed under 'Which game shall we play?' This will bring up the list of games available. The Choose the Spelling game will display three spellings for each word and let's you select the correct one. The Word Scramble game will show the letters of the word in scrambled form and you put them in the right order. The Fill in the Blanks game will display one blank for each letter of the word and you fill in the correct letters. The Spell the Word game simply gives you a blank to fill in with the correct word, providing no hints about the number of letters. And finally, the Final Review allows you to test yourself to see how well you've learned the words. It presents every word in the group one time and provides no hints at all. SpellChamp! tracks the scores for the Final Review separately so you can really tell how well you've done. Along with choosing the type of game, you also select which spelling group you'd like to use. If no groups have been defined yet, you must define a new group first by tapping on Define Groups. If you're not sure which group you want to use, you can select a group name and tap on Review Words to see the words that are included in that list. Finally, you can choose the number of equations you'd like to have in the game. More equations will mean you can get a higher score and potentially a longer bonus round so you might want to challenge yourself and see how high you can go! All the games use this setting except the Final Review which automatically presents each word exactly once. Once you're happy with your choices for which game you'd like to play, select the Done button to return to the main screen. Defining Spelling GroupsTapping on Define Groups from the Game Controls screen will bring up a list of all existing spelling groups. The currently selected group will be displayed at the top of the screen. To change the currently selected group, tap on a new group name. If there are more groups defined than can be displayed on one screen, use the scrollbar to the right of the group names to display the additional groups. Selecting the New button will allow you to define a new spelling group. The Mod button will allow you to modify the currently selected group. The Delete button will delete the currently selected group after asking you to confirm, and the Beam button will allow you to beam the currently selected group to another device. When you are finished defining groups, the Done button will return you to the Game Controls screen. Individual Group Definition Tapping on either the New or Mod buttons from the Define Groups screen will bring up the Group Definition screen, as shown here, and allow you to define a particular spelling group.
You must first define a name for the group up to a maximum of fourteen characters. Then you must select the words you want to include in the group by tapping on Select Words. Before selecting the words, you may also choose to limit the group of words that you will select from by using any of the available selection criteria. If words have already been selected for the group, you can review the current list by tapping on the Review button. When you are finished defining the group and are satisfied with the word list, you can tap on the Done button to return to the Define Groups screen. Note that every group must have at least one word defined. If no words are defined for the group when you exit the Group Definition screen, you will be prompted to either select words or delete the group. Word Selection Criteria You can limit the selection words by the number of syllables in the word. The database contains words from one to five syllables and so your choices for both the minimum and maximum syllables must be in this range. Also, the minimum number cannot be greater than the maximum. If the minimum and maximum limits are the same, the selection list will contain only words that have exactly that number of syllables. You may also select words that have a particular letter combination, from one to three letters. If the 'Match letters' field specifies any letters, only words containing those letters will be displayed. In addition, you can further limit the word selection by specifying the position those letters should be in, either at the beginning, middle, end, or anywhere in the word. Finally, you can limit the selection words by choosing either a spelling rule or a category. Only words matching the rule or category will be displayed. Be careful that you don't specify conflicting selection criteria. For example, if you select both the spelling rule 'Prefix' and the category 'Numbers', no words will match the criteria. If you get an alert indicating that no words match your criteria, you'll need to modify your selection criteria before you will be able to select words. Selecting Group Words When you tap on Select Words from the Group Definition screen and there are words that match the criteria defined, you will see the list of all words that you can select from. To select a word, simply tap on the checkbox to the left of the word. A check in the box indicates that the word will be included in that group. You can also tap on the word itself to see the sentence that will be used. This can be helpful, for example, if there are two different words with the same spelling (e.g., tear - as in crying vs. tear - to rip). The Spelling Database The spelling database currently contains over 5,800 of the most frequently used words and is organized by sixteen spelling rules and ten categories. Some words are also included more than once if they can be used as a different part of speech. For example, the word 'check' can be used as a noun ("Place a check next to the correct answer.") or a verb ("Did you check to see if the cat is outside?"). New versions of the spelling database are made available periodically. Occasionally, a word that previously had only one instance may have a second instance added. When this happens, if that word was included in an existing group, you will need to select which instance of the word you want to use. If you see an alert when the application first starts that some words could not be found in the spelling database, select the Undefined Words menu item from the Options menu. This will show you each word that cannot be found. In most cases, the issue is that there are now two instances of the same word in the database. SpellChamp! will show you the sentence for both instances and you can select which one you want to use. In the rare case that the word really can't be found, you will have the option to delete it from the group. This should only happen if a group was created from a version of SpellChamp! using a later database that was then beamed to your device. In this case, you could also choose to update the database instead of deleting the word. Reviewing Spelling WordsA Review button appears on several different screens and allows you to review the words that are defined for the currently selected group. This button appears on the main screen allowing you to review the words before playing a game, on the Game Controls screen to help you select the group you want to use, and on the Group Definition screen so you can verify that you are satisfied with the words defined for that group. The Review Words screen displays the current group name, the total number of words defined for the group, and the list of words. If there are more words than will fit on the screen, you can use the scrollbar on the right to display the additional words. You can also tap on any word in the list to view the sentence that will be displayed for that word. Playing SpellChamp!All of the SpellChamp! games display a sentence at the top of the screen with a blank that indicates the word that should be spelled. You can review the spelling word list and sentences ahead of time so you'll be familiar with the word being requested for the blank. The Choose the Spelling game displays three different spellings for the word. Your goal is to tap on the correct spelling. You'll get an indication if you selected the right one and if you didn't, the right one will be highlighted. The other three games will display a screen similar to the one below. This screen shows the Word Scramble game where the letters of the word are given in a scrambled format. Fill in the Blanks and Spell the Word will look similar, but won't show the letters.
To spell the words, you can tap on the letters on the screen or use Graffiti® or a keyboard on your handheld if it has one. The blinking cursor shows where the next letter will be entered. The cursor will automatically move as you enter letters or you can tap in a new location to reposition the cursor. You can also use the left arrow to back up and erase one character at a time. Words must be capitalized correctly. You can use the up arrow key on the screen to capitalize characters or you can use the standard Graffiti or device keyboard methods. To use the onscreen up arrow, if you tap on it once, the next character will be capitalized. If you tap on it twice, the keys will enter the caps lock mode and all characters after that will be capitalized until you tap the up arrow again. This could be helpful, for example, if you're working on U.S. State abbreviations. A shift indicator appears in the bottom right corner to show whether caps mode or caps lock mode is enabled. Once you've entered the spelling you think is correct, tap on the Check My Answer button to see if you're correct. It will show the correct spelling and indicate if you got it right or not. If you get stuck and need help, you can tap on Give Me A Hint and it will show you the correct next letter. But taking a hint means your score will be less, so try to work up to not needing a hint. While you're playing any of the games, you can watch the top right-hand corner to see how many points you've earned so far. Each time you guess a spelling, the score will be updated so you can see how you're doing along the way. If you need to stop a game in the middle, you can tap on the title bar or select the menu icon, then select the menu item to Stop the current game. You'll need to confirm that you really want to stop by selecting the Stop button or choose Continue to cancel and keep playing. The Bonus Round After you finish the number of questions selected for the game, you may get to enter a Bonus Round to try to earn a few more questions to answer. For every three questions that you guessed right, you'll get one second in the bonus round. When you start the bonus round, Bonzai the Bonus Hero will appear on the screen. Your goal is to catch Bonzai as many times as you can by tapping on him. Each time you do, he'll show up in a different place. And each time you catch him, you'll get one more question to answer which can make your score go even higher! ScoringWhen the game is finished, you'll see your final score and can record it by entering your name or selecting it from the list. If this is your first game, select the New Player button and enter your name. If you've played before, your name will appear in the player list and if it isn't already chosen, you can select it from the list. Scores can be tracked for up to eight players at a time. You can remove players if you need to, but removing a player will delete all of the scores stored for that person, so make sure you really want to before you do. High Scores From the main SpellChamp! screen, you can view the high score list from the High Score option under the Scores menu. The high score list tracks the top eight scores since the last time the list was reset. Scoring for each of the different games depends on the level of difficulty. Choose the Spelling is the easiest, then Word Scramble, followed by Fill in the Blanks, and finally Spell the Word. You'll notice that your scores for these later games will be higher so you may want to challenge yourself and work up to spelling the word all on your own. Player Scores To see the scores for each individual player, select the Player Scores option under the Scores menu. Choose which player you'd like to see scores for and which type of game. SpellChamp! stores the last 50 scores for each player and each type of game they play. The trial version of the application will only store the last 20 scores. You can choose how you want to view the scores. The score table will show you a list of the number right, the number wrong, and the score of each game. The graphs let you see how you're doing in a picture. You can choose to see a graph of your scores, or graphs of how many questions you guessed right or wrong. On color devices, you can also see a mixed graph of the number right and wrong together. The top color shows the number right and the bottom color shows the number wrong. When you're looking at a graph that shows the number you got wrong, you may not see anything for some games. That probably means you didn't get any wrong for that game and means that you did a great job! If you want to check to make sure, you can look at the score table to see what it shows. Group Scores The Player Scores option only shows how you're doing with the different types of games. If you want to see how you're doing with particular spelling words, you'll want to look at the Group Scores. Just as with the other scoring options, you can select this menu option under the Scores menu. Select the player name and group you want to see, and then select whether you want to see the words ordered alphabetically, or by the number right or wrong. The group score table shows each word in the group along with the total number of times the word has been guessed and the percentage that it was guessed correctly. This will show you which words you're doing well with and which words you still need to work on. Final Review Scores SpellChamp! tracks how you do on the Final Review separately and so teachers can even use the Final Review to administer their spelling test. Each word is presented one time and the final score is tallied at the top of the Final Review Score screen along with the date and time stamp when the Final Review was taken. Only one set of scores is tracked for each student and, as with the group scores, the words can be order alphabetically, or by the correct or incorrect words. If you exit the game before finishing all the words, the words that were not completed are indicated by a dashed line. Trial Period and RegistrationThe trial period for the SpellChamp! application lasts for 15 days, beginning when you first install the application on your device. You can use it for free during that time to see if you like it and want to keep playing. At the end of the 15 days, you must either:
Feel free to make as many copies of SpellChamp! and the documentation as you want and distribute them to your friends. Or better yet, just beam it to them. But make sure the copies aren't modified in any way and that you don't charge any fees or request any donations for doing so. If you like SpellChamp! and want to keep playing, you can purchase a license to use it at www.leadingstep.com. When payment is received, you'll be sent a registration code for the application. You should enter this code on the Registration form in the application, available from the Options menu on the main SpellChamp! screen. Using the SpellChamp! application after the 15-day evaluation period isn't allowed, so make sure to either purchase a license or stop using the application. InstallationInstalling SpellChamp! To install SpellChamp!, download the application and the spelling database to your computer. Follow the instructions that came with your Palm Powered™ device to install both of these files during your next HotSync® operation. Uninstalling SpellChamp! To uninstall SpellChamp! from your device, complete the following steps:
Thanks and SuggestionsThanks for choosing SpellChamp! We hope you have fun playing and would welcome any comments or suggestions you might have! Let us know what you think by sending us an email. We're always working on new games too, so if you like playing SpellChamp! be sure to check back soon on our website. Software License AgreementCAREFULLY READ THE FOLLOWING LICENSE AGREEMENT BEFORE USING THE SPELLCHAMP! SOFTWARE. BY USING THE SOFTWARE, YOU ACCEPT AND AGREE TO BE BOUND BY THE TERMS OF THIS LICENSE AGREEMENT. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO THE TERMS OF THIS LICENSE, DO NOT USE THE SOFTWARE. The SpellChamp! application ("Software" or "Application") provided along with this License, is licensed, not sold, to you by Leading Step, Inc. ("Leading Step") for use only under the terms of this License, and Leading Step reserves any rights not expressly granted to you. You own the media on which the Software is recorded, but Leading Step retains ownership of the Software itself. 1. License Grant "You" means the person or company who is being licensed to use the Software or Documentation. "We," "us" and "our" means Leading Step, Inc. We hereby grant you a nonexclusive license to use one copy of the Application on any single computer, provided the Application is in use on only one computer at any time. The Software is "in use" on a computer when it is loaded into temporary memory (RAM) or installed into the permanent memory of a computer - for example, a hard disk, CD-ROM or other storage device. 2. Title We remain the owner of all right, title and interest in the Software and related explanatory written materials ("Documentation"). 3. Software and Documentation Copies You may copy the Software and Documentation for back up and archival purposes. You may also make as many copies of this Software and Documentation and distribute them as you wish, provided that the copies are unmodified from their original form. You are specifically prohibited from charging for any copies or requesting donations for them. 4. Restrictions The Software and Documentation are protected by United States copyright laws and international treaties. You must treat the Software and Documentation like any other copyrighted material - for example, a book. You may not:
5. Transfers You may transfer all your rights to use the Software and Documentation to another person or legal entity provided you transfer this Agreement along with the Software and Documentation, and provided that the other party reads and agrees to accept the terms and conditions of this Agreement. 6. Term and Termination This license agreement takes effect upon your use of the software and remains effective until terminated. You may terminate it at any time by destroying all copies of the Software and Documentation in your possession. It will also automatically terminate if you fail to comply with any term or condition of this license agreement. You agree on termination of this license to destroy all copies of the Software and Documentation in your possession. Sections 7, 8, and 9 of the Agreement will survive any termination. 7. Limited Warranty We warrant that for a period of 90 days from your date of purchase that the Software will perform in substantial accordance with the Documentation. To the extent permitted by applicable law, THE FOREGOING LIMITED WARRANTY IS IN LIEU OF ALL OTHER WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, AND WE DISCLAIM ANY AND ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS, INCLUDING ANY IMPLIED WARRANTY OF TITLE, NONINFRINGEMENT, MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, regardless of whether we know or had reason to know of your particular needs. No employee, agent, dealer or distributor of ours is authorized to modify this limited warranty, nor to make any additional warranties. SOME STATES DO NOT ALLOW THE LIMITATION OR EXCLUSION OF LIABILITY FOR INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, SO THE ABOVE LIMITATION MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU. 8. Limited Remedy Our entire liability and your exclusive remedy for breach of the foregoing warranty shall be, at our option, to either:
IN NO EVENT WILL WE BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ANY DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY LOST PROFITS, LOST SAVINGS, OR OTHER INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING FROM THE USE OR THE INABILITY TO USE THE SOFTWARE (EVEN IF WE OR AN AUTHORIZED DEALER OR DISTRIBUTOR HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF THESE DAMAGES), OR FOR ANY CLAIM BY ANY OTHER PARTY. SOME STATES DO NOT ALLOW THE LIMITATION OR EXCLUSION OF LIABILITY FOR INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, SO THE ABOVE LIMITATION MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU. 9. General Provisions
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