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• Some words in the English language are difficult to spell because they don’t follow any spelling rules or they have silent letters.
• There are tools that you can use to improve your spelling.
• Tools to help you remember spellings could include mnemonics, acrostics, words within words and sounding it out.

Over the last thousand years English spelling has been influenced by lots of different languages, including French, German and Latin. Because English has borrowed words from other languages, lots of complex spelling patterns have developed.

There are many different reasons a word can be tricky to spell. For example:

• They have silent letters, like the letter ‘b’ in the word ‘subtle’.
• They have double letters that you also cannot hear, for example, in the words ‘disappoint’ and ‘accommodation’.
• They don’t follow a pattern or spelling rule, for example, the word ‘ancient’ does not follow the rule - ‘i before e except after c’.

Homophones are words that have the same sound, but a different spelling and meaning. These words might lead you to use the wrong spelling in your writing. For example, many writers confuse the words ‘your’ and ‘you’re’.

What tools can you use to remember tricky spellings?

Mnemonic

A mnemonic is a tool that helps you to memorise something specific, like how to spell a word.

For example, the following is a mnemonic for the word ‘necessary’ - ‘one collar and two sleeves’. This mnemonic could help you remember that the word ‘necessary’ has one ‘c’ and two ‘s’s’, which enables you to remember the tricky parts of this spelling.

Mnemonics can also be used to remember tricky homophone spellings. For example, ‘their’ is a possessive word - it has the word ‘heir’ in it - which is someone who may inherit lots of possessions.

Acrostic

You can also use an acrostic - a phrase you create from the letters that make up a difficult word.

For example, for the word ‘rhythm’ take the letters ‘R - H - Y - T - H - M’ and make the phrase ‘Rhythm Helps Your Two Hips Move’ with each word of the phrase beginning with the letters which spell the word ‘rhythm’.

Words within words

It can also be useful to remember shorter words within the tricky spelling.

For example, the word ‘bra’ in library is a memorable way to remember the tricky part of this spelling.

It’s also useful to remember that the word ‘independent’ has the following smaller words inside it - ‘depend’, ‘dependent’, ‘dent’.

The word ‘conscience’ can be tricky to spell. However, if you remember to always include the word ‘science’, it becomes easier to remember the correct spelling.

Sounding it out

It can be helpful to sound out the tricky parts of a word, for example ‘Wed - NES - day’ or ‘Feb-RU-ary’. The word isn’t usually said like this, but giving emphasis to the sound can help it stick in your memory.

Final tips

• Put aside time to work on difficult spellings.
• Create a list of your own personal tricky spellings.
• Invent your own tricks for remembering these words.
• Test yourself to check your progress.
• Come back to the lists regularly to check your long-term memory.

Activity

Quiz

Find out how much you know about tricky spellings in this short quiz!