15 spelling strategies for children who can’t spell for toffee – and everybody else!

1. Spellcheck: Things to remember – is it set to UK or US spellings?
2. Smartphones: Things to remember- Blackberry set to UK are very accurate, Android and IPhone can learn your bad spelling and mistakes but you can change this in settings.
3. Google: typing words into Google and letting Google (or other search engines) and looking at suggestions.
4. Writing words out several times and seeing which one looks correct. You can cross check this using a…
5. Dictionary
6. Spelling rules: these take a lot of criticisms but are there because they usually work.
7. Words within words: guidance, library, separate.
8. Similarities with other words: circumference, circumnavigate, circumlocutions.
9. Shape: remembering the shape of words. This uses working physical memory and works best with cursive.
10. Fake it: this also works well with cursive, slightly scruffy handwriting which can hide little errors.
11. Practise: repetition and more repetition.
12. Mnemonics: Necessary – 1 coffee, 2 sugars (1 x c, 2 x s)
13. Learning a range of prefixes and suffixes
14. Counting syllables.

And finally…

15. Phonics: phonics are good, they work with approximately 70% of words. This means that they don’t work with 30% of words.  They can also clash with regional accents and dialects.
    

    The Actual Toffee!

Back

Share Post: