John Grinder (NLP Co-Developer) modelled people who were good spellers and discovered that they all shared a common strategy- though it was outside their conscious awareness.

Most times I have seen people teaching the strategy, there’s only half of it present.
This is how I work with the strategy with children.
I talk about friendships to put a positive frame around the experience.
As the strategy is based on the NLP Eye Accessing Cues I want to check the ‘wiring’ of the child involved. Here it is:

(Me) “Who is your best friend in the whole wide world?”
(Child) “Susie is.”
(Me) “Could you make a picture of her in your mind’s eye?”
Child looks up and to their left – “Yes”
(Me) “You have many friends – how do you know that Susie is your bestest friend?”
Often the child doesn’t understand this so I say:
“Is it like a feeling you have?”
“Yes.”
“And where is that feeling – inside?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know?”
“I can feel it here” Child points to stomach area and looks down to their right.

You can assist this process greatly by making appropriate gestures.
We have now discovered the child is ‘wired’ as right-handed – different strategy if left-handed.
Now the spelling part.

To child:
We are going to use my name to start with. So look up and to your left and see the word GRAHAM – can you see the letters? (you can check by asking child to spell it backwards)
Is it correct?
Yes
How do you know?
It feels right
Where? I gesture down and to the child’s right.
Here – child points to or pats stomach and looks down to their right.
OK – let’s do it again. Look up to your left and see the word GRAHEM – can you see it?
Yes
Is it correct?
No
How do you know?
It feels wrong – I gesture down and to the right.
And is that a different kind of feeling from the correct spelling?
Yes
OK – good. Now let’s try another word.
At this point I ask for a word that the child had difficulty with in the past.
If no word I choose 2 or 3 (the word ‘rhythm’ is a good one).
Make sure that you end the process with correctly spelled words from the child.

English spelling is a VISUAL-KINESTHETIC PROCESS – it is not a phonetic or logical process.
Not convinced? Check out the text below:

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid. Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it denos’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoant tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey ltteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh?
And I awlyas thoghut slpeling was ipmorantt.