IDEAL SPELLING STRATEGIES AND REALITY IN OMANI CLASSROOMS By Muna Yousuf Al Bulushi Ministry of Education Writing synonyms writing the synonym of the word and then change it accordingly to produce correct spelling. (start-begin ) Visual checking The use of visual techniques to look at, write and correct the word. ( Look, cover, write & check) Syllabication The process of dividing words into segments or syllables and spelling the parts of the words ( spi/der) Analogy The use of other words as clues to help in spelling. (Brown-crown) Sounding out The use of phonetic clues or sounds to spell a word. (saying letter sounds in chunks) There are different types of spelling learning strategies that help students learn the spellings of the words Kinesthetic strategies The use of different physical activities to remember the spelling of the words (do skipping or create letters of words through body parts) Visual memory The use of a mental image of the word to spell it. (imagine the word’s letter as animals or in a story) Rule use The use of particular rules to spell a word. (ending patterns –ed, ing) In Oman, cycle one and cycle two students (1-10) use the LOOK, COVER, WRITE & CHECK strategy ( i.e. visual checking) OMAN Many students fail to get the correct spelling of the words because they were trained to use one type of strategies to learn spelling i.e. visual checking strategy 757 students from grade 4 and grade 10 responded to Spelling Learning Strategies Questionnaire to indicate the frequency of strategy use.   The most frequently used strategy by grade 4 was rule use and the most frequently used strategy by grade 10 was visual checking. Our students use more than one type of spelling learning strategies to learn spelling, not only one single strategy. Spelling instruction should not only be centered on one type of strategies ignoring the others! All of the students in grade 4 and grade 10 reported the use of all spelling learning strategies to a certain degree. Oman 16th International ELT conference, SQU, poster presentation 21/4/2016