dealing with demons

Question: My child tends to misspell the same words over and over again. Are there any tricks for helping her to remember those words?

Answer: Frequently misspelled words are sometimes called “spelling demons.” Everyone has spelling demons – not just children. So why does the correct spelling of some words elude us? It helps to realize that written English is made up of several languages, each with its own spelling system. (You didn’t know that you can write in several languages, did you?) Learning to spell words correctly requires you to know which letters represent which speech sounds in which words. That can be a lot to keep track of. Which leads me to an important point about being a good speller: good spellers use their ears to help them spell words. They listen for the sounds in words and then find ways to remember how sounds are spelled in specific words.

Sometimes word analogies, or sorting words into groups, can help. In working with a  first grade student this week, I discovered that she had difficulty spelling the word “by.” She wasn’t sure how to write the /ai/ sound. Was it “i”? “ie” “y”? I told her to think about how /ai/ was spelled in “fly” and “cry.” She now had three words she could spell, and an association to help her remember this spelling.

For particularly difficult words with rare or one-of-a-kind spellings, mnemonics, or memory aids, are useful. The word “friend,” for example, is commonly misspelled. Teaching the mnemonic “Friday is the end of the school week” can help anyone to remember the “i” in “friend.” And practicing a spelling demon in an authentic way can cement that word into your memory….

How do you deal with your spelling demons?