If you’d like to know how to easily memorize the spelling of words, there’s a particular memorization strategy you can quickly learn.
Using it, you will associate letters with objects.
What is association?
The core of all mnemonic strategies: Creating a mental relationship between something you don’t know with something you do know.
There are various levels of nuance to the technique, most of which can help you memorize spellings.
But let’s get started with the basics.
Your First Step To Memorizing Spellings
First, you want to develop an Alphabet List. This is also sometimes called the pegword method.
All this means is that you assign objects to each letter of the alphabet. Your list could be as simple as:
- A = apple
- B = boat
- C = cat
- D= dog
- E = elephant
- … and so on.
Or you can be more specific and use people, like celebrities.
In this case, your list might contain:
- A = Al Pacino
- B = Bob Newhart
- C = Cory Hart
- D = Dame Edna
- … etc.
In case you’re wondering, using the alphabet like this is how people use use memory techniques have operated for thousands of years. I’ve made the alphabetical method the core of my teaching because it still works just as well today as it did thousands of years ago.
Now, assuming you have at list one entire list from A-Z, here’s what to do next:
Use images based on your alphabet. Add actions to help you remember the order of the letters in a word. That way, you will stop making spelling mistakes.
Example Of Memorizing Spelling Using Association
Let’s say you need help memorizing the spelling of “toxic.”
If you have Tony Robins sending an owl to someone named Xavier who throws an iguana at a cat, it’s suddenly easier to memorize the spelling.
Throw this sequence of mnemonic imagery into a Memory Palace, and everything will happen for you even faster.
Setting up your alphabet-image system might seem like a lot of work, but…
… when you compare the relatively short bit of time it takes to fashion a system like this with the mounds of time lost over trying to remember the spelling of words and correcting writing, you will save a lot of seconds over the long haul.
And you can always use The Freedom Journal to help you rapidly accomplish the goal.
If you want an additional exercise, check out how to memorize the books of the Bible for a hands-on assignment that involves lots of intricate spellings.
A Second Way To Memorize Spellings With Mnemonics
One of the easiest number memory techniques is usually used to learn numbers by heart. But in some cases, it often called the Number Image Technique or Number Shape System. These are both much simpler variations on techniques like the Major System, the PAO System and the Dominic System.
When learning how to remember numbers with pictures, the idea is to choose objects that resemble the numbers as closely as possible.
Mnemonic Example of a number shape for 1
To give you a few examples to help you understand how to use a number technique for memorizing spellings, you would visually link:
* 1 with a candle
* 2 with a swan
* 3 with the M from McDonald’s
* 4 with a sailboat …
…and so on.
If you wanted to remember the number 42, you would then see something zany like a sailboat chasing a swan.
It’s also a great way to memorize where you parked. For example, my friend Nick and I parked in B4 once at a Brisbane shopping center when shooting this video on my YouTube channel.
To memorize the parking spot, I associated a B with a sailboat and then lined that mental image up with his car.
It’s a simple example, but another way of seeing how you can associate images in space to correctly produce words – even if those words are more like codes for parking spaces, passwords and the like.
Example Of Using Number Shapes To Memorize Spellings
Let’s take the word “toxic” again. Since we know that one is a candle, we can have the first letter “T” associated with a candle. For example, you could imagine a tea bag or Tony Robbins either holding or getting burned by a candle.
Since the second letter is “O,” you could imagine a swan eating an Oreo cookie.
Now, imagine that you have all of these number images already distributed throughout a Memory Palace. No matter how long the word is that you want to spell, you’ll always know which order the letters belong in by placing them in the order of your journey.
I use this system a fair amount, particularly with foreign foreign language vocabulary or complicated terminology. I suggest you give it a try as well as it is very powerful. You can even explore using it with character sets like the hiragana in Japanese.
The only number technique I can’t see making sense for memorizing numbers would be number rhymes. But if you’re curious, give it a try. And it never hurts to have more mnemonic tools in your toolbox.
So what do you say?
Are you ready to get out there and memorize some spellings?
Make it happen, and if you need more help with the Memory Palace part, get my FREE Memory Improvement Kit Here:
It will help you craft Memory Palaces perfectly designed just for memorizing spellings.
That way, you’ll always get it right. Or at least have a fast path to correcting your spelling errors when you need to brush up.
Hi, I’m trying out for my English UIL spelling team and was hoping that you’d have some advice on how to memorize the words because there are over a thousand and they’re not easy words. Plus I have to know when a certain word is capitalized or not.
The language is my native one but the spelling is killer. Please help of you can.
Thanks for this, Courtney.
The Magnetic Memory Method does describe exactly how to memorize this amount of words. In fact, Eldom Clem used it last year to cover 1000 words of Ancient Ethiopic in 6 weeks.
Have you taken the free video course offered on this site or read How to Learn and Memorize English Vocabulary? Those resources will help and contain all my best advice. All you need to do is follow the steps and you can repeat Eldon’s results and perhaps even with greater speed! 🙂