How to Learn Spelling?
Spelling is a basic skill to master the English language. But it has been the biggest fear of parents and of most children. Not every student learns to write without making mistakes. How well you can recall a spelling is a determining factor. Students need to remember the words in their minds and then train their minds to remember them.
1. Write or Visualize to Learn Spelling.
Good spellers remember a difficult word by the way they see the word in their mind’s eye. The reader needs to perceive the word as right. Write a word in your notebook, look at it, and then cover it. Now try writing that word from your memory.
Exercise: Look at the word “peace” in your mind, now change the letters “ea” by “I” – pice – and observe the feeling? The word feels weird, isn’t it?
This clearly shows that a misspelled word gives a strange gut feeling.
We all have inner pictures and a gut feeling. All we need is to utilize them consciously.
When you read, you use the letter connecting reading method. The eyes recognize a word and forward it to the brain, which screens already built-up words in internal storage and names the suitable word. This happens within the speed of one hundredth of a second. Students need to be calm in the learning process, and little scope for errors too.
Exercise
Follow the letter-by-letter reading method to read this:
If you can raed this txet you are qeiut good at rdniaeg and this is the fsirt but not the only setp to a good slnilpeg.
Correct sentence:
If you can read this text, you are quite good at reading, and this is the first but not the only step to a good spelling.
2. Prefixes and Suffixes
Spellings consist of prefixes and suffixes. Prefixes are small, word-forming elements that are attached to the beginning of words, while suffixes are word-forming elements attached to the end of words.
Example of Prefix: Un – (means “not”): unhappy, unusual. If you know “un”, you just need to remember the base word.
Example of Suffix:
-tion: Creation, Participation, Celebration.
Many nouns end with- tion. If you remember this, you can associate the rest of the letters to remember the spelling of the word.
3. Break the Word into Parts (Chunking)
The best way to remember a spelling is to divide the word into smaller parts or syllables. This is called Chunking.
Example:
“Re-ward” instead of “Reward” (2 syllables)
“Ap-pre-ci-ate” instead of “Appreciate” (4 syllables)
“Com-plete” instead of “Complete” (2 syllables)
“in-ter-est-ing” instead of “Interesting” (4 syllables)
A word can be split into two, three, or four syllables and pronounced slowly and carefully so that you can associate the letters with each syllable.
4. Use Mnemonics
Mnemonics are a group of memory aids that facilitate the quick and easy assimilation of information of all kinds. Facts, figures, names, and spellings can be recalled far more easily by using this technique. Mnemonics involves creating a phrase or a story to remember tricky words.
Example:
Broccoli
The boy Rocco likes it.
Leisure
Lee is sure to enjoy a life of leisure.
Lieutenant
Don’t lie, you tenant!
Opinion
Pin it on your collar.
Pageant
An ant crawled across the page.
5. Remember letters to get words.
When letters come in head, align them, then one after the other, to combine them into a whole word. But the letters and their combinations are pronounced differently. You must remember different sounds that are created by combining letters and pronounce them according to the sound of the letter.
Some mentors encourage you to be a visual thinker and save the word picture to the spoken word. This can be an efficient way to memorize spellings in the long term. However, others may teach you to save word pictures in your mind according to the sound.
Most of the students retain the spelling of the word by hearing. This happens by building a lot of inner memory hooks. This is the auditory method.