GED Reading Skill: Spelling

Hola, everyone! I guess spelling is a writing skill, but it’s a reading skill, too. The better speller you are, the easier you can recognize words in what you’re reading, and the more you read, the better speller you are. Since someone in GED Stories mentioned he wanted to get better at spelling, I thought I’d do a post about it.

I’ve got five rules for learning to spell better. See, everyone’s got some spelling problems. But there are a lot of words that you spell right all the time. You don’t need to worry about those words, so you gotta concentrate on the words you tend to spell wrong. You got to personalize your spelling learning for yourself. That’s why I have my first rule:

Keep a list of words that you misspell.

This is a list of words you know that you misspell, not a list of hard to spell words or anything like that. It’s about learning to spell the words you use when you write. So it narrows down what you need to study to the words you actually use! It’s personalized just for you.

Read and write more.

I said before to read more… it helps you with a lot of things! Read anything you like… and write about things that are important to you. The more you read and write, the better you’ll get at all kinds of language…spelling, too. Try highlighting new words when you read to get better at vocabulary and spelling. Look at how the word is spelled, and try to break it apart into parts.

Use the dictionary and your word list to proofread your writing.

“Proofreading” means to go back to your writing and correct things that are wrong. Your word list should have most of the wrong words on it! That’s the point of the list. If there are other words spelled wrong, look in the dictionary, and you’ll probably want to add them to your list. If you’re not sure, look it up!

Sound out words.

Some words can be easier to remember how to spell if you sound them out. Like I learned to say to myself: Feb…ru…ary to pronounce the “r” so I could spell February right. (Funny spelled word!) This helps with a lot of longer words, like ad-ver-tise-ment, or gov-ern-ment, because sometimes in between the syllables the sounds get lost when we say them fast. Saying them slow, sounding out each part, helps you remember how to spell them.

Use a memory key.

A memory key is a trick to remind you how to spell something. Like, saying “there’s two ss’s in dessert because you’ll want seconds.” That tells you how to spell dessert (like cake) instead of desert (a big sandy area with no water). Those words are easy to mix up, and a memory key is a good way to help you keep them straight.

Here are some websites that have some memory keys for spelling:

http://www.fun-with-words.com/mnem_example.html

http://www.netnaut.com/mnemonics/spelling.html

And here’s some more sites about spelling and spelling games:

http://www.ldonline.org/article/6192

http://www.funbrain.com/spell/index.html

http://aeaea.cs-i.brandeis.edu:8080/spellbee/index.jsp

http://www.gamequarium.com/spelling.html

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/grammar/

http://literacy.kent.edu/Midwest/Materials/ndakota/spelling/toc.html

Spelling will help you read better and write better, so it’s lots of help on the GED. Good luck with your GED studying!