Mnemonics for Spelling: Which Tricks Work and Which Waste Time

Somebody, at some point, taught you that there is "a rat" in "separate". Decades later it still works: you reach the middle of the word, the rat appears, and you write an a. It is one of the most efficient pieces of teaching you ever received.

Somebody else taught you "Never Eat Chips, Eat Salad Sandwiches And Remain Young" for "necessary". You may remember the sentence perfectly and still hesitate over the word, because you have to unpack nine initials to find the one letter you were unsure of, and by then you have lost your place in the email.

Both are mnemonics, and they sit at opposite ends of a scale. This article looks at what the research on memory tricks actually shows, which kinds of spelling mnemonic earn their place and which cost more than they return, why tricks fade, and how to combine a good one with the kind of practice that makes the trick unnecessary in the end.

What the research says, and what it does not

Most research on mnemonics is not about spelling. It is about learning facts and foreign vocabulary, and the best-studied technique is the keyword method. In the mid-1970s, Richard Atkinson and Michael Raugh taught English speakers Russian vocabulary by linking each Russian word to an English word that sounded like part of it, then forming a mental image connecting the two. The students who used the method learned noticeably more words than those who did not.

Joel Levin, Michael Pressley and their colleagues went on to run many studies of the keyword method, and a 1982 review by Pressley, Levin and Harold Delaney concluded that it reliably helped vocabulary learning under the right conditions. So mnemonics can clearly work.

But there is a catch. When John Dunlosky and his colleagues reviewed the major study techniques in 2013, they rated the keyword method as low in overall usefulness. It suits only certain material, each image takes effort to build, and in some studies the advantage faded after a delay. The two techniques that same review rated highest were practice testing and spaced practice. That finding will matter later in this article.

As for spelling mnemonics specifically, there is far less direct research than their popularity suggests. What we can say with confidence comes from neighboring evidence: about how spellings are stored, about word families, and about saying words the way they are spelled. It points in a clear direction.

Why a good trick works: the hard spot

Most misspelled words are not wrong all over. They go wrong in one place. "Separate" is right apart from the middle vowel; "necessary" is right apart from the question of which letter doubles; "definitely" goes wrong only at "-ate" versus "-ite". Teachers sometimes call this the hard spot of a word.

The psychologist Linnea Ehri has shown that we store a spelling by linking its letters to sounds and meanings we already know, a process she calls orthographic mapping. Most letters link easily. The hard spot is where the link is missing, because the sound gives no clue, as with the unstressed middle vowel of "separate".

A good mnemonic supplies that missing link, and only that one. "A rat" attaches the unclear vowel to a word you cannot forget. It says nothing about the rest of "separate", because the rest does not need help. That precision is what makes it fast enough to use mid-sentence.

Four kinds of trick that earn their place

Good spelling mnemonics tend to fall into four families. The table gives an example of each and the reason it works.

The family link is the strongest, because it is not really a trick at all. "Signal" contains the g that "sign" hides, "muscular" reveals the c in "muscle", and "definite" shares its root with "finite", "define" and "infinite", where the i is plain to hear. Peter Bowers and John Kirby found in a 2010 study that teaching children to see words as built from meaningful parts improved their grasp of words they had never been taught. A family link fixes the target word and quietly explains its relatives.

Spelling pronunciations have direct support too. In a 2017 study, Turkan Ocal and Linnea Ehri found that college students who practiced saying hard words the way they are spelled remembered the spellings better than students who did not. It feels silly, and that may be part of why it sticks.

The tricks that waste your time

Some mnemonics cost more than they return, and they share recognizable features.

Acrostics are the main culprit. A sentence whose initials spell the word, like the one for "necessary" or "Big Elephants Can Always Understand Small Elephants" for "because", has as many parts as the word itself. It does not aim at the hard spot; it gives equal weight to every letter, including the ones you never got wrong. Worse, you have to recall the sentence, decode it letter by letter, and hold your place while writing. For a child's first encounter with a word, an acrostic can be fun. For an adult writing an email, it is a detour.

Long stories are the second trap. An elaborate tale about why "rhythm" has no a, e, i, o or u takes longer to recall than simply learning the six letters, and you need the whole story to extract one fact.

The third is the rule-shaped rhyme that is wrong too often to trust. "I before e except after c" is right for "receive" and "believe", but it runs into trouble with "weird", "science", "their" and dozens of others. Our look at whether i before e is true sets out exactly when it helps.

Finally, tricks for words you already spell are pure overhead. Every mnemonic is one more thing to remember.

Children and adults need different tricks

Much of the bad reputation of spelling mnemonics comes from using children's tricks with adults, or adults' tricks with children.

Young children often enjoy exactly the things that slow adults down. A silly sentence, a drawing, or a story about a word can make a first encounter memorable, and for a seven-year-old meeting "because" for the first time, that pleasure is worth something. One good version is to have the child draw the hook straight onto the hard spot: a small rat sitting in the middle of "separate", or a pie drawn around the "pie" in "piece". The picture and the letter choice become the same memory.

Adults need speed. A hook that cannot be recalled in under a second will not be used while writing, and a hook that is not used will not last. For adults, the family link and the word inside a word are almost always the right tools, and acrostics almost never are.

Why you forget your mnemonic

Many people report the same frustrating experience: "I had a trick for that once, but I can't remember it." This is not a personal failing. It is the forgetting curve.

In the 1880s Hermann Ebbinghaus showed that newly learned material fades quickly at first and then more slowly. A mnemonic is newly learned material like any other. If you invent a trick on Tuesday and never use it again, it will be hazy by next month, and so will the word it was meant to help.

The tricks that last for decades, like the rat in "separate", are the ones people keep using. Every time you write the word and the rat appears, you are practicing both. The trick survives because it is retrieved, not because it was clever.

How many tricks can you hold?

There is no research figure for this, and anyone who quotes one is guessing. What is clear from memory research generally is that similar items compete. If you have a trick for "necessary", another for "accommodate" and a third for "occasion", all about which letters double, they start to blur into one another.

In practice, keep mnemonics for your stubborn few, the words that still go wrong after you have learned the pattern behind them. A few dozen is a sensible ceiling for most adults. Beyond that, the tricks become a list of their own that needs memorizing.

Rules first, then families, then tricks

English spelling is far more regular than its reputation. In a famous 1966 study, Paul Hanna and his colleagues analyzed about 17,000 words and found that around half could be spelled correctly from sound using regular patterns, and more than a third of the rest with only one error.

That changes the order of attack. One pattern, such as the doubling rule, covers thousands of words. One family link covers a handful. One trick covers one word. So learn the patterns first, use word families where the pattern runs out, and save tricks for the words that are left.

When you do make a trick, make it yourself if you can. Norman Slamecka and Peter Graf showed in 1978 that people remember material they generate better than material they simply read, an effect known as the generation effect. A hook you invented, however odd, tends to outlast one you were handed.

Combining a trick with spaced practice

The goal of a mnemonic is to become unnecessary. It is scaffolding: it holds the word up while the real memory forms, and then it can come down. What builds the real memory is retrieval, spaced over time.

1. Find the hard spot. Write the word, compare it with the correct spelling, and circle the one place where you went wrong.
2. Choose the lightest hook that covers that spot, preferably a family link, and ideally one you made yourself.
3. Practice by hearing the word and writing it from memory, reaching for the hook only if you are stuck.
4. Bring the word back the next day, then a few days later, then a week later.

Over a few weeks, you will notice that you stop needing the hook. The spelling arrives on its own, and the trick fades into the background, which is exactly what you want. This is the combination the evidence supports: a precise trick to form the link, and retrieval practice spread over time to make it permanent. Henry Roediger and Jeffrey Karpicke's 2006 study remains the classic demonstration of that second part. Spelling.School handles step four for you, scheduling each missed word for review with spaced repetition.

What to do next

Pick three words you misspell regularly. For each one, find the hard spot and ask whether a related word explains it. If one does, use that. If not, make up the shortest hook you can that points at the hard spot, and nothing else.

Then practice those three words from memory over the next week, and notice when the hook stops being needed. For ready-made hooks for the words people get wrong most, see our list of commonly misspelled words and tricks to remember them, and for the wider picture of why words fade, our explainer on the forgetting curve.

Questions people ask

Do mnemonics really help with spelling?

Mnemonics help with a small number of stubborn words, especially when the trick points directly at the one part of the word that goes wrong, such as "a rat" in separate. Research on memory tricks shows they can speed up learning, but their benefit can fade if they are not used, and major reviews rate spaced practice and self-testing as more effective overall. The best approach combines a short trick with regular practice spelling the word from memory.

What is the best memory trick for spelling?

The best spelling trick is usually a family link: a related word that reveals the hard part, such as the g in signal that explains sign, or finite inside definitely. When no related word helps, a short "word inside a word" hook that targets the single problem letter works well, like "a piece of pie". Tricks you make up yourself tend to be remembered better than ones you are given.

Why do I forget my spelling mnemonic?

A mnemonic is new information like any other, so it fades quickly if you do not use it. If you create a trick once and never recall it again, both the trick and the spelling tend to be forgotten within weeks. Using the trick while practicing the word from memory, and repeating that practice after a day, a few days and a week, keeps both in place until the spelling no longer needs the trick.

How many mnemonics can you remember?

There is no fixed number, but similar tricks tend to interfere with each other, especially when several are about which letters double. For most people, keeping mnemonics for a few dozen genuinely stubborn words works better than having a trick for every hard word. Patterns and word families should do most of the work, with tricks reserved for the words that remain.

Is it better to learn rules or tricks?

Rules and patterns are usually the better investment, because one pattern covers many words while one trick covers only one. About half of English words can be spelled correctly from regular sound patterns, and knowing word families explains many of the rest. Tricks are most useful for the small set of words that still go wrong after the patterns are learned.

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