New Study Strategy?

Last week I did a sort of 'experiment' with a student who has been constantly struggling with her spelling. She and her mom tell me how much they are studying, but the child can't seem to make over a C. This is frustrating on all sides as you can imagine, so I needed to find a 'new' strategy for us to try. That is when I was reminded about using visual cues! I decided to try it out right away. I sat with the little girl and we wrote out all her words on flashcards. Then we decorated each one and even for some of them came up with catchy phrases. By the time we were done with the cards, she could already spell them all for me! Having only two days to study with our new strategy before the Friday test, she still managed to get a grade of B!!! Wow! So we are trying it again to see if it really will help, because we can't base everything on this one sucess. But, I decided to try it with the whole class this time. What I'm most excited about is not kids learning more spelling words, I'm really excited at the possiblity that I may be teaching them a powerful new studying strategy. This strategy can be used in all areas- math, science, social studies, language... So next time you or your child have to memorize something, try writing it out creatively, adding color, pictures, and also coming up with some catchy phrases or tunes! It just might make it stick to that brain of yours!

Here is a link to an article I read that matched up with my reasoning- http://www.visualspatial.org/Articles/spelling.htm