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| Franklin SSB-210 Speaking Spelling Bee | 
 enlarge | Brand: Franklin
Category: CE
List Price: $99.95
Buy New: $88.99
You Save: $10.96 (11%)
New (22) from $88.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  1 reviews
Color: white
Media: Electronics
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Batteries: 3
Shipping Weight (lbs): 3
Dimensions (in): 4.5 x 2.4 x 1.1
MPN: SSB-210
Model: SSB-210
UPC: 084793998225
EAN: 0084793998225
ASIN: B0014HS8WA
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Features:
| • | 3 ways to play Competition, Game Show and Practice | | • | Includes M-W Intermediate Dictionary and Thesaurus and Rhyming Dictionary | | • | My Word Bank saves words played in the SSB game and custom word lists, too | | • | Includes Sudoku, Hangman and Word Train games for more fun! (additional games can be downloaded from Franklin website) |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Talking Dictionary / Includes 4 Vocabulary Games / For ages 8 and up / Uses 3 AAA Batteries Compact design with sliding keyboard; you can take it anywhere Connects easily to most TV's for living room tournaments SD slot and USB connectivity provides expandability
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| Customer Reviews:
Speaking odd and no spelling what you want! April 6, 2008
13 out of 13 found this review helpful
The Franklin speaking spelling bee is quite a great idea. But it fails in many ways. I paid $107 for it after taxes and shipping.
It's quite a neat little gadget but not quite what it could have been or what I was expecting.
I loved the idea that it pronounced the word out loud so my sons could hear the word and then spell it. Especially my oldest son who wants to practice a lot for next years spelling bee at school...some of those words on the list I don't have a clue how to pronounce. Anyway, Franklin ended up putting the speaker on the back, so if there is any other noise in the room you can't hear it and the volume doesn't go near loud enough. Most of the time when we play we turn the back towards our ear so we can hear it. When using headphone we have to hold our hands over our ears so we can hear it. And then beyond this, some of the pronunciations are not very clear and you ending up hearing something entirely different from what they are trying to say. We have learned to read the definition before trying to spell even on the simple words just to make sure we heard correctly.
The next disappointment for me was the fact that you can't chose words to use in the Competition spelling, game show spelling, practice or in the word games. The only way you can use your own word bank is for review....which you can do by writing them down on paper and having your child read over them. The spelling bee word bank are words chosen from the Merriam-Webster intermediate dictionary which is on the device. So far in our spelling bee word bank we've had words as easy as mess and loft and pare to the bigger words such as connoissure. But there is no method to the maddness you can have the easiest word one time and then on the next turn have the hardest. You can chose spelling levels in some games such as beginner, advanced and Master, but the words in one level still vary quite a bit more than you would think.
The 'games' it comes with are Word train, Hangman and Sudoku. Don't know what sudoku has to do with spelling but my son likes to play it. Word train is somewhat fun, but frustrating as you can only play against computer and it beats me almost all the time and I am an adult, my 4th grader is frustrated with that part of it. In word train you start out putting a letter down and then the computer goes next and you alternate turns until you spell a word. Such as I would put a P and the computer an E then I would a S so then the computer wins by putting a K and making pesk. You can't go anymore even though you could add to it and make it pesky. There are also games available for download on the franklin website at 6 dollars a piece.
The Franklin speaking spelling bee comes with cords to hook it to your tv so you can play with a group or just have a bigger visual screen. We have not tried this yet. As I said earlier you can download from their website, but it does not come with the usb cord, you have to buy your own. The game its self is about the size of a cell phone with a slide out keyboard....if you have big fingers you'll have to use and pencil end or fingernails if you've grown them out.
When I purchased this I had an idea in my head of getting to practice the words for school spelling bee from the lists that are provided by Scripps National Spelling Bee especially since Franklin is associated with Scripps. It's unfortunate that we can't chose the words we want to practice. It would have also been good for practicing spelling words for classroom spelling tests.
I guess this is worth the 100+ dollars for the dictionary/Thesaurus/Rhyming dictionary/confused word lists, since electronic dictionaries run about that much. And the spelling is good for practicing, but I am still disappointed.
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