Happy Birthday DoodleEnglish and DoodleSpell!
Back in 2011, we realised the potential in using technology to teach. We decided to develop technology that could create personalised learning programmes tailored to the strengths and weaknesses of individual children, designed to enhance, rather than replace, teaching in the classroom.
This month marks DoodleEnglish and DoodleSpell’s 1st birthday, and we couldn’t be more grateful to all of our Doodlers, parents and teachers. We thank you for your continued support!
With celebrations well underway here at Doodle, we thought it would be a great idea to look at ten of the most commonly misspelt words in DoodleSpell’s first year and share our favourite ways of remembering them.
1. ‘grammatically’
This word takes the title of the trickiest word in DoodleSpell, probably due to the fact it has two pairs of double letters. To help with these double letters, remember this sentence:
There are 2 mice and 2 lions in grammatically.
2. ‘television’
The tricky part in television is the sion ending. Words that have this ‘shun’ sound can be spelt in many different ways. However, this sentence should help:
SpongeBob is on the television.
3. ‘magically’
When you say this word, it’s easy to understand why children forget the second a and the second l. To avoid this, children just need to remember that ally can be a person’s name!
Ally is magic.
4. ‘secretary’
We think the best way to remember ‘secretary’ is to say it in a funny way – secretary has the word secret in it! A secretary can keep a secret.
5. ‘international’
A great way to help remember international is to split it into its prefix, root word and suffix. Inter and al are easy to spell. Nation can be memorised if you break it up into three parts and say it in a funny way by pronouncing all the letters: ‘nat – i – on.’
6. ‘plentiful’
If you are someone who finds applying spelling rules a challenge, a word like plentiful is best remembered using a mnemonic. Pete lent Ian five unhappy lambs.
7. ‘mathematician’
The letter e is tricky here, but spotting the word them inside mathematician can help with this. The cian ending is difficult too because the ‘shun’ sound can be spelt in many different ways. Cian is easy to remember here because you use this ending for jobs or occupations.
8. ‘independence’
There are two tricky parts to this word. One is using the letter c rather than an s. However, ence is a common ending, so once you learn it for this word, you can apply it to many others!
The second tricky part is mistaking the first e as an i and the last e as an a. This can be avoided if you remember this important fact: there are four e’s in independence!
9. ‘surgically’
A common mistake with surgically is forgetting the double l. It might help if children are drawn to the word call hidden inside!
10. ‘character’
You might find it useful to pronounce the c and h in character as the ‘ch’ sound to remember the silent h. In addition, the letter a in can be mistaken for a different letter. This sentence should help: You must act to stay in character.
Happy spelling!
