Spelling Made Easy With NLP

Report cards are coming home and many of us are struggling to identify useful methods for decreasing our child's anxiety over testing, frustration with reading and poor focus or inattentiveness in class. Often we recognize the stress in them because the feelings are all too familiar within ourselves. Learning stress seems destined to follow students from grade school all the way into university. You may even be noticing it in the work place as companies and employees strive for higher level training and qualifications for those who may not have seen the inside of a classroom in years and who may not remember that classroom in a positive way.
Did you know that many of the challenges we face are actually self created. In other words, it is often the stories we tell ourselves - in the privacy of our own minds - that is actually inhibiting our performance. Our thoughts have energy. As we begin to utter any statement about ourselves, the universe instantly begins to comply with those requests. Statements like, "I am a lousy student; I am no good at Math; I fall apart on tests; I just can't spell" are all great examples of this phenomenon at work. Think it and you become it - a self fulfilling prophecy.
What can we do then to change the outcomes we are getting? The first step is in recognizing and resisting those negative dialogues - consciously reframe them into a statement about what you 'do' want rather than what you 'don't' want. Another step would be in getting enough rest - sleepy people make poor students and struggle with attention. Nutritionists have constantly advised students to eat a healthy breakfast as it kicks into gear the mental capacities necessary for enhanced performance. Finally, one can begin to develop a strategy of modeling the strategies used by someone who performs well in the areas in which we are attempting to improve our skill. This article will provide some insight into the 'How To' for this particular skill set.
Neuro Linguistic Psychology (NLP) is founded on the belief that all behaviour has a structure. As such, one simply needs to notice the structure in someone who performs well, de-code it and then apply the strategy for ourselves. Unfortunately, most individuals who excel in a particular area are not able to articulate exactly how they do it. Their thinking process is mostly automatic. As a result, we may have to look for additional clues to uncover their process. Robert Dilts, one of the early pioneers of NLP often used spelling to demonstrate how to locate the other clues. He used spelling because it was simple to demonstrate and easily testable.
When learning to spell, we often encourage our students to sound the words out, but this strategy may actually be compounding their spelling difficulties. Phonics is the tool used for spelling words the way that they sound. Phonics is useful for decoding words never seen before, but it is not the strategy that good spellers adopt. In order to recognize how this strategy may not be useful, take a moment and apply that strategy to the word 'Phonics'. When sounded out phonetically, it sounds like "puh-hon-iks". When spelled phonetically it looks like "fonix"? You can see how this may not be the best strategy for a poor speller.
If you were to ask a good speller how they know when a word is spelled correctly, you will likely hear "I just feel that it looks right." The stronger the 'feeling' the more sure they are that the word is spelled correctly. This is a great clue. Let's break the message down.
Start with the eyes for they are the windows to the soul. Watch carefully the eyes of a good speller as they are asked to spell a word. You may notice that first their eyes will go up and to the left. NLP says that when this occurs the person is accessing the part of their brain where visual memories are stored. This indicates that a picture of the word has become available to the speller. The eyes then cast downward. NLP says that this happens when the part of the brain responsible for feelings is accessed. It is at this point where the speller knows that they now have the correct spelling of the word. Notice that the 'sound it out' system is not in the strategy used by effective spellers.
Unfortunately, poor spellers use a variety of strategies. In some cases they will even shift strategies in the middle of spelling a word. This leads to inconsistencies. Perhaps that is why your child knew their word list during your review with them but then performed poorly on the spelling test the very next day.
So how can we use the strategy of a good speller to improve the performance of a poor speller? The answer is going to seem too easy - do it - it really works!
Step 1: Look at the correct spelling of the word, then look up and to the left to visualize it. This places the correct spelling into memory.
Hint: If you are struggling with this step, picture the word in your favorite colour or as a string of letters pulled together to create the entire word.
Step 2: Develop a feeling of confidence and shift your eyes downward to produce that confident state
Hint: If you are struggling with this step, think about anything that you feel confident doing - tapping into it will shift your feeling state. While picturing the correct spelling, feel the confidence you get when doing something you are really good at and the feeling of confidence will anchor itself to the correct spelling.
Now when asked to spell a word you simply shift your eyes up and to the left to "see" it, then down to get the sense of confidence you need to know it is the correct spelling.
You have now learned a process for how to become a good speller. By noticing the clues presented by a good speller, you are able to adopt that strategy for yourself. Imagine how you could use this information in other areas of your life.