Franklin The Elementary - electronic dictionaries (QWERTY, 139.7 x 93.98 x 19.8 mm, AAA)

This was a nice present to my ESL students when they graduated.

The Franklin HW-1216 is the perfect tool for helping younger students check their work and learn new words. I ordered three for my third grade classroom - they seem perfect for this age. The feature that makes the spell-check work for students is that when you enter a word with your best spelling guess, you get not only a list of correctly spelled words, but brief dictionary definitions as well. If you think about it, kids might not otherwise be able to distinguish between words with very close spellings. In addition to the speller and dictionary, this model also has word games like hangman, and a feature that will show you the word you enter in cursive. It's a very useful addition to the homework toolkit, and good for travel as well.

I bought this dictionary for my 3rd grade daughter to help her on spelling. The excitement was gone in 30 minutes after not being able to find more than 3 words in 10 searches. Many easy words can't be found, and most of word descriptions are so simple that she still can't really understand the full meaning of the words. The calculator feature in the dictionary is pretty much useless. She likes to play Hangman with me, but we always have to add the word to the word list, and ask Hangman to get the word from the list. There is also a game called fun with Spanish and French..it was interesting to look the sentences in Spanish & French once, and that is about it. The screen resolutoin is very low, so the letters are quite jaggy. I am very disappointed with this particular dictionary. Maybe I should try the other more expensive models.

Did not open until my granddaughter's birthday. New batteries. Am experienced computer, device user. Not a chance that we misread instructions or lacked skill. Worked for 5 minutes and then started getting garbage. Reset as well as the logical turn it off and on and the usual problem solving. Device simply is poorly made. Someone thought that a flashy case would do it. Don't waste your money. Return policy plus cost makes it nonsense to return and I certainly don't want a replacement.

This has been a very neat item that we use in our "Homework bag." My children are in the 2nd and 3rd grades and are constantly asking how to spell something. While I don't mind helping, I don't want to spell everything for them. My parents and teachers had us to look things up in the dictionary when I was growing up and this is along the same lines. I like that it's lightweight and being in our "Homework bag" can be lugged around when and where needed. My children don't have unlimited access to our computers and I don't always have time to sit down with them to make sure they stay on homework and don't get distracted by other things. This helps with that. The kids can type how they think the word is spelled and this gives them the correct spelling and definition. There are also games included. Although my children haven't used it for that as much. However, there is a cursive writing option that my oldest uses quite a bit. You type in the word and that word is written on the screen in cursive writing. It's made it so much easier for my 3rd grader to practice cursive writing. She likes to come up with her own sentences to write in cursive and not just the words and simple sentences used on worksheets for practice. Overall, it's a good product and works well for us.