Some people are naturally good spellers, while others struggle with words.
The people who go on to win championships are often naturally gifted with spelling and go on to develop and use effective strategies to take them to the next level… and they also practice a lot.
We can learn from those strategies, to make easy enhancements in our own spelling skills, and bump them up a notch or two.
Here’s the lowdown on the differences between good and weak spellers and 11 techniques to elevate your own skills.
Good speller strategies
Most good spellers confirm the spelling of their words, using a form of synaesthesia. In a nutshell, that means they’re incorporating more than one sense into the confirmation of word spellings.
The good speller might construct some sort of mental image of how the word is constructed. Then, they will use their auditory senses to judge whether the word can be sounded out, using their choice of spelling. Lastly, they will often ask themselves whether the word feels right.
Winners of Spelling Bees put strategies into place and then spend countless hours tweaking and refining the process until they’re comfortable with a huge selection of the English language.
When doing daily activities, finding ways to use multiple senses can give you a boost to your recognition and retention skills in whatever you do.
Weak speller strategies
Poor spellers tend to use strategies that aren’t as effective. A common technique used by poor spellers is to try sounding out the word, which unfortunately, doesn’t work with many English words.
Early and repeated failure in spelling may cause the poor spellers to stop trying, and they start telling themselves that they’re just not good at spelling. Without guidance by a patient teacher or parent, this may cause them to fall even further behind.
11 Simple Spelling tips
Here’s a list of simple tips you can incorporate into your daily routine to start building your word power:
- Pay attention – It’s when you start paying attention to anything that you start seeing the details more clearly.
- Get familiar with root words – If you understand the root of the word, you’ll be able to understand it’s meaning in almost any context.
- Read detailed material more frequently to see new words – Facebook updates don’t count, but journals and high-level periodicals work nicely here.
- Write – The best way to make you think about how words are spelled. Turn off spell checker at first, and then use it when you’re done. Which words are you spelling incorrectly?
- Search out and use uncommon words – By incorporating words that are on the fringe of your vocabulary, it makes you more aware of the language around you. When you hear an uncommon word, look it up and read the definition. It’ll only take you 30 seconds to do.
- Wordsmith.org – Get a new word emailed to you daily with the definition explained.
- Review common rules of spelling – You might find it more interesting than you think… or maybe not.
- Look up a list of the 100 most misspelled words – There are a million of them out there, but most list are similar. Look for patterns.
- Artwiculate Twitter game – Challenges you to creatively use an uncommon word each day.
- Synaesthesia – Look for ways to use multiple senses to interact with the words around you.
- Look up and to the left – When you think of the spelling of a word, look up and to the left. It may help trigger a visual memory of when you saw the word in print.
Do you instantly wake up when you smell coffee brewing in the morning? Is there a certain food your mother used to make that takes you back to when you were eight and sitting in her kitchen?
When I was in a slump in my job at the brokerage, my manager asked me to take home copies of the movies Boiler Room and Glengarry Glen Ross. It was mostly as a joke, but he did want to get across the fact that sales, whether good or bad, is largely a factor of the confidence you project.
I read an article a few months ago where the author said that using the sandwich technique to provide feedback was ineffective. He made some valid points, but I think there is still a place in your leadership toolbox for the sandwich approach when evaluating performance.
It's important to start with a positive feedback statement. Sometimes it's tough for an employee to come into the manager's office. They might already be thinking that it’ll be a bad conversation. A small dose of positive feedback is a great way to start off the conversation and get their attention. 
The final step is to set a positive goal for moving forward. A quality of great leaders is the ability to skilfully re-direct the actions of a team member . By having you specify a new method or technique going forward, you will make your life easier and help your employee to feel a little bit more fulfilled. It won’t change their life, but if they are able to make enough small corrections over a long enough period of time, you will have helped them build a strong foundation of skills related to their work. It's doing things in small, manageable steps that makes all the difference in the world.
1. If you have a new idea that you want to try. Ask for feedback from a few other people at your current job level first. A subordinate may feel like they have to laugh at your joke or get behind your idea, even if it's a bad idea. It's better to ask people who aren't afraid to give you the truth.
Here’s something small you can try today that will elevate your sales and persuasion skills.
