Spelling was not one of my best subjects in elementary school. I would drill my word list and because I studied in the traditional way, I missed a lot of words on the weekly quizzes. All the words I missed I had to write in my notebook, which was lovingly called “My Personal Word List.” The words in My Personal Word List were considered special words that I should review so I could retake the quiz and hope the second time around proved to yield better results (None of this was my idea, as I would have been far happier to never see those words again!).
The main difficulty I see with this whole scenario is that it was assumed that words I couldn’t remember how to spell after drilling, writing, and spelling aloud, I would somehow be able to remember after repeating the process that didn’t work for me the first time. From my vantage point, some fifty years later, I clearly see that if a method didn’t work the first time, it is just silly to try again using the same approach.
So, the other day I was writing a sentence using the word “lavender.” Only I spelled it lavendar as is my wont. Because I was using graphics software, spell check did not save me. When the goof was brought to my attention, I knew I had to help myself once and for all. In the process, I remembered I also have trouble remembering how to spell caterpillar (I usually end the word with an “er.”). So this is what I made:
Why do these visuals work?
1. I chose a small word that I DO remember how to spell. In these examples, the words I know without any trouble are “super” and “dollar.” I remember “dollar” because I tend to say the word like this in my head: doll–ARE.
2. Next, I grouped the known word with other words that have the same spelling pattern, and I made a silly sentence using them all.
3. Finally, I sketched a picture that ties all the words together and illustrates the sentence.
4. The next time I jog my memory to remember how to spell lavender, I will think first of the picture of the lady with the lavender hair, then I will recall that she is a super gardener. And voila! There is my hint for how to correctly spell lavender.
5. For caterpillar, I will do the same thing. The picture flashes into my mind, and then I will think of his collar purchased for a dollar.
What makes this so effective with right brained learners?
Right-brained children who have already struggled and failed will be so empowered if we can direct them to use their amazing visual memory to help themselves remember concepts. Right brainers don’t memorize in the way we are used to. They DO capture pictures intact in a snap and remember anything that is connected to the picture. When I first began using this approach with children 1st grade through middle school, once they figured out that they could rely on other pathways to their brains other than the traditional memorization of sequences of letters, they could learn a list of words in 15 minutes. Children in grades 3 and up could study their sheet of words by themselves and many times would look up at me and say, “Quiz me now!” The most fabulous byproduct of their success is that their reading abilities soared in the process. This procedure smoothed the way for them to find the wonderful spelling patterns in words, and over time they were able to read unfamiliar, new words by comparing their components to other words they already knew.
If you're interested in seeing more visuals that group spelling patterns like the ones above, check out The Illustrated Book of Sounds & Their Spelling Patterns for a super resource in which all the sound spellings are grouped into sentences with cartoon illustrations. Make learning to read and spell a snap for those special right brainers!
Comments