and to really see the letters in colour down to their right and to check that they feel right and then write them in the air using their finger
Do this 3 times on each group of letters and move through the other colour groups.
Then get your child to see the whole word and place it again up to the left and down to the right.
Then ask them the magic question: Spell the word ‘
Now spell it backwards – what are the three letters in the middle, at the end, (or any other combination.)
If they can’t do it, or falter over a block, get them to do the process again, only emphasise that they do not need to work at it, they only need to relax and use their eyes and look.
This strategy works because you are asking them to place the letters in a place where they visually remember, using NLP’s eye accessing cues. They can easily recall the picture of the word that they have placed in their visual memory.
(Neuro Linguistic Programming is an ever-growing collection of information, insights and mental techniques that can enable people and children to improve how they think, behave and feel.)
This works by going from up left to down right however, some children, (and adults), place the other way so to check where your child visually constructs ask them a visual question and watch their eyes. i.e. do we have a shed in our garden? Where in the garden is it? This tells you which side their visual memory is on.
I used this spelling strategy with a group of dyslexic children and their confidence really soared as we had such fun with it. It builds capability rather than just short term memory.