Three habits help you spell better, at any age: read a lot, keep a list of the words you get wrong, and learn a mnemonic (a little memory trick) for the hardest ones.
Even with spell checkers built into phones and word processors, spelling still matters. Poor spelling can get your resume thrown out, and it can cost you credibility, whatever you are writing. If you are not a good speller, a few good spelling tips can help you improve.
Spelling seems either very easy or very hard, depending on whether you are good at it. For people who spell well, it seems to come naturally. For people who do not, it can seem nearly impossible.
Knowing that you are a bad speller and improving your spelling are two very different things, though. How do you improve your spelling when you no longer have a spelling quiz at school every week? You can look words up in a dictionary, but that quickly becomes tiring. Besides, you have to know roughly how a word is spelled before you can find it.
Here are 3 spelling tips that can help.
1. Read a lot
Any list of spelling tips should start with this one. There is simply no substitute for reading when you want to become a better speller. Reading does two things for you:
- It shows you new words.
- It reinforces the correct spelling of the words you already know.
Knowing how to spell a word is not only about how it sounds, or even about memorizing it. It is about how it looks on the page. When you ask someone how to spell a word, how often do they write it down first to see whether it looks right? Probably quite often.
Seeing words spelled correctly again and again imprints them on your memory, so you recognize the right form when you see it. Over time, you will become a better speller.
2. Keep your own list
Some words give a lot of people trouble, and some words seem to be on your own personal list for no clear reason. Either way, one of the most popular spelling tips is to keep a list of the words you struggle with. Add a word every time you spell it wrong, have to look it up in the dictionary, or see it corrected by the Spell Checker. A list of the words most commonly misspelled in English is a good place to start.
This tip helps you in two ways:
- You have a handy reference when you are writing and come across one of "your" words.
- If you keep the list somewhere you see it often, you get used to seeing those words spelled correctly.
3. Use mnemonics
Mnemonics are another popular spelling tip. A mnemonic is a short sentence or idea that makes something easier to remember. For example, many people have trouble spelling piece, but the sentence "a piece of pie" makes it much easier: the word pie is part of piece.
Here are a few others:
- Definite has two i's and no a, because it has finite inside it.
- Here, there, and where are all about places, and each one has here in it.
- Cemetery has three e's, like a scream: "Eee!"
There are many more of these. If you need one for a word that gives you trouble, search the web for the word followed by "mnemonic". You are likely to find several memory tricks that help you remember how to spell it. For more ways to remember spellings, see the 4 most helpful spelling rules.