If you’re not sure how to spell a word, say it out loud, very slowly. Then write down what you hear. Of course, this won’t work with every word. The word ‘friend,’ for example, doesn’t sound the way it’s written. For words that don’t sound the way they’re spelled, you will need to use a different method.
Sometimes words are difficult to spell just because they are long. In these cases, you can use the chunking method. Chunking is when you separate the word into “chunks,” or shorter parts. The word ‘embarrassed,’ for example, can be chunked like this: em bar ras sed
Remembering information can be difficult. But when you give that information more meaning, it becomes easier to memorise. Rhymes and songs make words and information easier to remember. One of the best-known spelling rhymes is ‘i before e except after c or when sounding like ‘a’ as in ‘neighbour’ and ‘weigh.’ This rhyme tells you when to write ‘ie’ and when to write ‘ei.’ Some mnemonics use sentences to explain the difficult part of spelling a word. Having trouble spelling the word ‘island’? Just remember that “an island is land surrounded by water.’ Is ‘separate’ spelled with an e or an ‘a’ in the middle? ‘There’s a rat in separate!’
Sometimes the best way to learn is to know the rules. Start by learning a few. Then, as you learn new words, you can add more and more rules. For example, why does the y in ‘friendly’ turn into an i in ‘friendliness’? Well, when you add a suffix (a word ending like ‘-ness’) to a word that ends in the letter y, that y is changed to an i. But that’s not the case if the suffix starts with an i (like ‘-ing’). So someone can be ‘trying’ but that same person ‘tries.’ You can be ‘partying’ or go to many ‘parties.’ Thanks to knowing one word, you can learn how to spell many others that follow the same rule!
Check word origins in the dictionary
Many English words have Greek and Roman roots which means they have Greek or Latin words in them. Knowing common roots can help you spell (and understand) more words. For example, have you ever wondered why ‘bicycle’ is spelled the way it is? It comes from the Greek word 'cycl', which means ‘circle.’ This is easy to remember because a wheel has the shape of a circle. The bi in ‘bicycle’ is from Latin, and means ‘two.’ So a bicycle is something that has two wheels.
Learn commonly misspelled words
Some words are so tough to spell that even native speakers get them wrong a lot. Here are 10 examples of commonly misspelled English words: believe, beginning, broccoli, calendar, scissors, restaurant, rhythm, until, usually, weird
Make a list of the words you have trouble spelling
Write down words that you have trouble spelling, even if they seem simple. Then learn their spelling rules or memorise them with mnemonics. Knowing what you need to learn is an important part of learning!
Encourage your child to follow this Route to Spelling and use all the spelling skills they have learned to help them figure out the best guess for a word:
