How can I teach myself to spell? (You’ve just got to get on with it!)

Flannal ❌

Deodorent ❌

Lables ❌

💬 Family member: You’ll going to have to improve your spelling if you’re to become an English teacher.

19-year-old me: 😬

True story. These were misspellings on my holiday packing list. 🛄

At that time I was doing an English degree. And I had high hopes of being at the chalk face when I graduated. 👩‍🏫

I know being good at English isn’t all about spelling. There’s sentence structure, vocabulary, cohesion, skills of inference and analysis. The list goes on…

But I didn’t want 🙋‍♀️a hand to be raised in my classroom. “Miss, you’ve made a spelling error!” 😳

So, I got tough on myself and sorted it out.

It took effort. The main thing was not to gloss over my misspellings. I knew in my gut when I’d made a mistake. So I looked them up. Every time. And I began pronouncing words in my head the way they are spelled.

DeodorANT ✅
FlannEL ✅
LabELs ✅

…Not that I have to write these words very often.

But with words like:

ProbABly ✅
IntEResting ✅
DeFINITEly ✅

I use these often and still say them in my head the way they are spelled.

⏩ 19 years later, not only have I completed 15 years of teaching, but I’m a trained proofreader and have had my own business for two and a half years. 🔎