Mnemonics help one to remember. A word that tells a story is a terrific way to remember spelling - especially if the story is amusing. It's easy to make up a mnemonic - make them up yourself to help your pupils or have your pupils make them up themselves. Share them by filling in the submit box at the bottom of this page.
 

Susan Tsairi This is the way I teach my pupils the days of the week Sunday Monday (sun,moon) Tuesday(sounds like 2) Tuesday was blessed two times Wednesday(sounds like when?)when will the week end? Thursday(was a problem for me but I saw a good solution above Friday(we eat/fry fish for Shabbat) Saturday(we rest-sit/sat)

Lita Arkin: Many years ago, almost fifty in fact, I was taught by one of my English teachers how to remember which stationary is stationary and which is stationery. I don't know if it works for Americans but it did for us English. Stationary - is the taxi cab driver called [H]arry who's always waiting at the station , which is why he's called Station 'Arry. The other one is the writing paper. I've never confused the two since, though I sometimes have to stop and think which one is it.

Rachel Arenstein: We were taught in school that stationEry had an E for envelope. That's how I always remember

Jan Malek: Another version of the stationery/stationary difference - we were taught that we write letters on stationery and both letter and stationery have e.

Arieh Sherris Ever since my staff began to use the following sentence: "Betty eats cake and uncle sells eggs." we rarely find "because" misspelled.

Nancy Peled: To this very day (and we are talking decades) I remember how to spell "arithmetic" and "geography" because of the mnemomic devices I learned in elementary school:  A red Indian thought he might eat tobacco in church.  Georgie eats old gray rats and paints houses yellow.

Rachel Arenstein: Stalactites grow down from the ceiling. Stalagmites grow up from the ground.

Vivienne Riffkin: When the mites go up the tights come down.  But perhaps it's not really suitable for school.

Yael Gal: I will never forget the two similar little eyes... in ' sEE ' which can always look at the  se@ and its wavy ending ( especially when... you have a vast canvas of a ...blackboard...)

Galia Kaspi As the word "effect" is usually used as a noun, you connect "the effect" - meaning that the two "e's" match each other like dominoes. As all students know, we use "the" before a noun. That leaves that other word (affect) as the verb. So what happens when they want to "effect a change"? I guess if they can use that phrase they'll know it's an "e"!

Lita Arkin: 1. For British spellers - when to use "ce" or "se", as in "licence" or "license" "n" (= noun) comes before "v" (= verb) in the alphabet; "c" comes before "s", so the "ce" ending is the noun and the "se" ending is the verb. 2. "stalacTites match "TOP'; the other is the bottom one.

Renee B. Here one to remember the difference between PRINCIPLE and PRINCIPAL: A principLE is a ruLE, but a princiPAL is your PAL!

Ami Matus: 1. principle and princiPAL---the principal should be your PAL! 2. desert and deSSert-- wouldn't you like 2 desserts instead of only one!

Sharon Tzur: Remembering how to spell "believe".  I tell my students to remember the sentence, "I believe EVE.  The "I" and the "EVE" are the last four letters of the word "bel -I-EVE.

Lita Arkin: I was told to remember the order and colours of the rainbow through the word ROYGBIV - with a hard "g". It seemed the most ridiculous word to memorise. P'raps that's why I've remembered it - with red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet.

Avraham Roos: How about: Rainbows Offer You G-D's Bright Illuminating Valentine!  Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet.

Rachel Arenstein: Colours of the rainbow: Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain  very English but that's how I remember

Hasta luego: Week and Weak Have you ever heard of this one?  "Week" is strong because the e's make a bar straight across. But "weak" is weak because the bar is the broken/inconstant 'ea'.

Nancy Peled: Hi, has anyone mentioned "I before E except after C or when sounding like A as in "neighbour" or"weigh" ?

Rachel: And for those of you who can never remember metric measurements how about this: King Henry Died a Miserable Death Called Measles kilometres, hectametres, decametres, metres, decimetres, centimetres and millimetres.

Rachel G: Here's another one for BECAUSE. Big Elephants Cause Accidents Using Small Exits I usually draw a picture of an elephant breaking through a small door marked EXIT to illustrate this and that is the image that sticks in students' minds!

Lita Arkin: How about one for maths to cope with those complicated equations: 62 (3+7) - 9 x 8 (32:8) + 4 (7x2) : (6 + 47) I don't know the answer but here's the order in which to solve it. Bless My Dear Aunt Sara, i.e. Brackets, Multiplation, Division, Addition, Subtraction.

Sharyn Weizman: This may be of limited use to English teachers but to remember the names of the planets I teach the sentence: My Very Elegant Mother Just Served Us Nine Pickles Mars Venus Earth Mercury Jupiter Saturn Uranius Neptune Pluto

Rick Hoch: Currently, Neptune is the furthest planet from the Sun, not Pluto. Pluto has a very unusual orbit and now has passed inside Neptune's. (My Very Eloquent Mother Just Served Us Pickled Nectarines/Plenty of Noodles/Pithy Newts/Poisoned Noodles [It happens] -- take your Pick, Now!)

Jennifer Byk: Many - no most of my students, as well as my two 'native speaker' daughters, can never remember which day, in Hebrew, is Tuesday, and which is Thursday. Well, Thursday has five letters before the word day.  Yom hamishi!  The other one's yom shlishi.

To remember which months are long and which are short: Thirty days has September, April, June, and November, All the rest have thirty-one, Except for February (which has twenty-eight). Another version from Rupert Russell: Thirty days has September, April, June and November; all the rest have thirty-one, but February twenty-eight alone except in leap year once in four when February has one day more.

"I" before "e,"                            (relieve, achieve) Except after "c,"                         (receive) Or when sounded like "a," As in "neighbor" and "weigh." As another poster said, "Usually."  My personal favorite exception is "weird," because its meaning describes its spelling.

i before e except after c or when sounding like a as in neighbor or weigh, except seize and seizure, also in leisure

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