STEPS

1. Place the correct spelling of the word in front of you so you can see it easily.

2. Close your eyes and think of something that feels familiar and relaxing. When the feeling is strong, open your eyes and look at the correct spelling.

3. Move your eyes up and to the left (or to the right for left-handed students) and picture the correct spelling in your mind's eye.

4. Look up at your mental image and write down the letters you see. Check what you have written against the correct spelling. If incorrect go to step #1.

5. Look up at your mental image and spell the word backwards (write the letters down from right to left). Check the spelling. If incorrect, go to step #3.

HELPFUL HINTS

A. Picture the word in your favourite colour.

B. Make any unclear letters stand out by making them look different than the others in some way - e.g. bigger, brighter, closer, a different colour, etc.

C. Break the word into groups of three letters and build your picture three letters at a time.

D. Put the letters on a familiar background. Picture something like a familiar object or movie scene then put the letters you want to remember on top of it.

E. If it is a long word, make the letters small enough so that you can see the whole word easily.

F. Trace the letters in the air with your finger and picture in your mind the letters you are writing.

With long words, people often experience difficulty in being able to initially visualise the entire words easily (especially people new to the process of visualising). Most often what happens is that some letters are clear but the rest get out of focus or hazy. In such a situation one needs some operations to make the unclear letters stand out. In this case there are two more sub-operations that may be used:

a. breaking the word down into groups of letters (typically groups of three); and