Spelling strategies can be learned that will improve student spelling.
Students need to be taught to:
"* sound out each word slowly, look for visual patterns (usually a
pattern is highlighted in a word list such as an -ly ending);
"* create an analogy when needed (remembering my and play can
help you spell may);
"* think about word meaning (especially, at their age, homophones
like meet and meat);
"* examine words structurally for prefixes, suffixes, and roots; and
"* look for word families such as -ake in bake, cake, and rake.