Spelling is one of those fundamentals in life. Without better spelling skills, many aspects of our lives can suffer. It can also affect our self-confidence and how we interact with others in our lives. The good news is that there are techniques to help us in times of spelling dilemmas. They can also be used to improve our spelling over the longer term.
Some strategies to improve spelling include: breaking words down into their smaller parts (i.e. syllables); connecting words to their families; and examining prefixes and suffixes (Knight-McKenna, 2008). If you are stuck, these are some handy ways of working out how a word is spelt.
Another modern strategy to improve your spelling is with the use of specifically designed software programs.
The recognition of syllables is perhaps one of the easiest ways to better spelling. When having difficulty spelling, try to apply the types of syllables. The Closed Syllable finishes with a consonant and has a short vowel (Jordan School District, 2009). There is also an Open Syllable that finishes with the sound of a vowel (e.g. Domino). The Signal 'e' syllables finish with an 'e' and have either a long or short vowel. For example, ‘bite’ or ‘lately’.
Another type of syllable is that of the Vowel Pair Closed syllables. These are syllables where the vowel has two or more letters and it finishes with a consonant, such as ‘feet’ (Jordan School District, 2009). This type of syllable can have adjoining vowels in two separate syllables, such as ‘fuel’.
Another type of syllable is that of the Vowel Pair Open syllable where, just like the Open syllable, the word finishes with the sound of vowel. In the pair, the vowel has two or more letters. For example, ‘window’ has the open vowel of ‘ow’ or display and ‘ay’.
The R-Controlled syllable is when the ‘r’ is situated after the vowel. One example of this is 'jar' (Jordan School District, 2009).
There is also the Consonant-le syllable where words end in ‘le’, such as ‘apple’.
Two other syllables that can be used to help better spelling include the weak syllable and affixes. The weak syllable is when a word has a weak sounding vowel in it, such as wagon (‘o’) or signal (‘a’).
Prefixes and suffixes are also syllables that you can break a word down into to help your spelling. For example, the prefix ‘un’ in ‘unhappy’ or the suffix ‘ly’ in ‘lonely’.
Investigating a word after it has been spelt wrong is also a way to improve one’s spelling. This is also where syllables can help as they can be used as a learning tool. If you find you misspell a word, use the following process to learn from the mistake.
First, write down the incorrect spelling of the word and then write it using the correct spelling. You can then, in essence, analyze the area that you’ve spelt incorrectly. Examine what you spelt wrong and consider it. Once you have worked this out, you can then define the word and use it in a sentence. This will further reinforce your ability to spell it correctly.
Poor spelling can inhibit many things we do in life. There is, however, no reason to let it affect you. Following some basic rules and techniques, you can develop better spelling. It is just a matter of patience and practice.
References
Jordan School District 2009, Nine Types of Syllables, viewed 9 July, 2009 (pdf).
Knight-McKenna, M 2008, ‘Syllable Types: A Strategy for Reading Multisyllabic Words’, Teaching Exceptional Children, vol. 40, no. 3, pp. 18-24.