FAQs

Yes! Often a person who cannot spell well has had years of failing so asking them to spell can put them in a poor learning state.

The second element to this strategy is for the person to be in a good resourceful state.

Magical Spelling is about creating a safe non-threatening environment and enabling them to access the thinking part of the brain and this is achieved by the good state.

Ask them questions such as:

• What colour is your toothbrush?
• Do you have any pictures in your house? What kind of frame is on them?
• What colour is your front door?

Notice their eye movements and you should see a pattern of going to the left or right or even straight ahead. Then hold up a blank piece of card for them and ask whereabouts they’d like it.

This is the test to ensure that they are using a visual strategy to remember the word.

Some dyslexic learners have problems with seeing black words on a white background so use pastel colour paper with blue or black pen. If anyone has difficulty seeing the word ask them what combination would work for them. Make sure you have a good supply of different pens and coloured paper.

No! Use lower case letters because this is a visual strategy and writing in lower case letters creates more variety in the shapes of words. Use a font that looks familiar to the learners.

If they are having difficulties ask them to do any of the following:-

• Ask “What do you need to do to make the word/letters clear and still?”;
• Break the word into groups of up to three letters and build your picture group by group;
• Make any unclear letters or groups stand out by making them look different than the others in some way – e.g. bigger, brighter, closer, a different colour, etc;
• If the word is a person or a thing, picture that person or that thing and put the letters over it or under it like a caption;
• Picture the word in your favourite colour;
• If it is a long word, make the letters small enough so that you can see the whole word easily;
• Trace the letters in the air with your finger and picture in your mind the letters you are writing.

Get them to do the exercise while singing Happy Birthday in their head.

Spelling is a capability, learnt easily by some, and more difficult for others. This way of learning to spell isn’t magical at all, it’s very ordinary.

As far as we know nearly everyone who can spell English words consistently and accurately uses it.

It is only magical for those many people who have tried to use other mental strategies to learn to spell and despite many long hours of study have failed.

These people, many of them very intelligent, are often branded lazy, stupid or careless. They sometimes believe it themselves.

Specific difficulty with spelling may affect many areas of their lives:

• how they think of and esteem themselves as learners;
• the interests they pursue;
• how they are perceived by others;
• and in adulthood, the jobs they might go for.

In addition to preventing mis-spellings, “Magical Spelling” allows writing to become more fluent, and reading to become faster, smoother and more accurate.

Yes! Often a person who cannot spell well has had years of failing so asking them to spell can put them in a poor learning state.

The second element to this strategy is for the person to be in a good resourceful state.

Magical Spelling is about creating a safe non-threatening environment and enabling them to access the thinking part of the brain and this is achieved by the good state.

No! Use lower case letters because this is a visual strategy and writing in lower case letters creates more variety in the shapes of words. Use a font that looks familiar to the learners.