English is a phonemic language, so it isn’t easy to learn its spelling.
A lot of native speakers also make mistakes in writing correct spellings, so you can have an idea of how difficult spelling can be for language learners.
But, if you will follow some tips, you can learn the spellings without any difficulty.
What are these tips?
Let’s discuss them in detail.
1. Read a lot:
The primary tip for spelling learning is to read a lot. It will help if you read books, newspapers, articles, and other reading material to acquaint yourself with different spellings.
The best material to read for improving spelling is vocabulary lists. Different lists of vocabulary have words with simple and tricky spellings so that you can learn a lot from them.
If you are unsure where to find the vocabulary lists, click here.
2. Use Mnemonics:
Learning spellings is not as hard as retaining them in your memory. For remembering spelling and making the learning journey fun, you can use Mnemonics.
These are valuable tools for memory aid. They include different aspects such as rhymes, exciting sentences, and pictures to keep the spellings in your mind.
For example, you can remember that “separate” has a rat. You can make acronyms of different words or can find the similarities between a word and an object.
You can create different mnemonics of your own or can take help from websites such as About.com.
3. Learn Spelling Rules:
You can find different spelling rules on Google, which can help you improve your spelling. Though it is a boring way to learn, this method is effective.
You should learn one or two rules at a time and practice them. When you are sure that you have memorized this rule, move toward another one.
There are some special spelling rules, too, which you should also learn.
4. Speak out loud:
Another method is that you can speak out loud a word and hear which alphabets are present in it. Though it is not an effective way to learn English spelling, it still helps.
You may misspell specific words because they have silent alphabets in them. A lot of words in English don’t sound like their spellings.
For example, Knight has “K” silent, so you can’t guess its proper spelling by speaking it out loud.
So, don’t rely much on this process and use it a little bit to learn to spell.
5. Watch English Movie with Subtitles:
Watching English movies with subtitles will not only enhance your listening and reading skills but will also help you in learning to spell.
It is a fun way to learn how a specific word is sounded and how it is spelled. You can watch the movie with a notebook and can note down the spellings which seem difficult to you.
6. Do Chunking:
Chunking is a process in which you break down a word into small parts and then learn it. It is an exciting way to make the spelling learning journey easy.
For example, you can learn “interesting” by breaking it down into four parts:
- in
- ter
- est
- ing
So, when you learn these four parts, you can learn the word quickly.
7. Spelling Competition or Quizzes:
If you have a comrade learning English, you can have a spelling competition with them.
You should create a list of difficult English vocabulary words from the dictionary and cram it.
Afterward, you both should write the vocabulary list as a test and check each other’s tests.
If you don’t have a friend, you can go for online English spelling quizzes. Google them, and you will find plenty of them, as there are a lot of E-learning websites eager to help students.
Make sure that you note down those spellings which you have written wrong in the quiz. This way, you can take out the maximum from the examinations.
8. Play Word Games:
There are different word games and puzzles which you can use to remember spellings.
Board games such as Scrabble and Scattegories best test English spellings and learn new ones. Crosswords and Codewords puzzles not only improve general knowledge but also teach about spelling.
Wrap Up:
English spellings are the trickiest part of learning, and many English speakers commit mistakes in it. But, if you follow these eight methods, you can learn the spelling easily.
We hope this guide will help you in becoming an expert English writer.
