Visual Spelling Knowledge

Does the word look right? Good spellers often try spelling a word several ways in order to see which way looks correct. Reading and being read to helps students build their visual memory of words related to particular concepts. 

Visual memory is important when it comes to correctly using homophones, too, like 'pray' and 'prey' or 'tale' and 'tail'. Extensive reading and word games will also help students to build their visual memory. 

Provide students with a glossary of key terms and encourage students to do the following:

• Use a highlighter to highlight any hidden words in the main word. 

• Colour in the word, adding any pictures/symbols to each of the letters to help them to remember them. 

• Imagine the letters of the word in their mind. Make them unusual in some way. 

• Colour code the spellings they are learning. Use colours to pick out patterns in the way the words are spelt. 

• Write out the words as many times as they can. 

• Look carefully at each word and notice any patterns. 

• Make silent letters stand out, using colour, symbols or pictures. 

• Write the spellings in different colours.