There, their and they're sound exactly alike, so a child's ear gives them zero clues about which spelling to use. Most classroom drilling asks kids to memorise the rule ("their shows possession") in isolation, but rules stored without a strong mental image rarely survive the pressure of actually writing a sentence.
This is where dual coding helps: pairing a word with a picture or tiny story gives the brain two ways to retrieve it instead of one. It is not about official grammar terminology, it is about giving each spelling something concrete to hang onto.
There contains the word "here" inside it, so picture a finger pointing at a place: "the ball is over there." Their contains "heir," like someone who inherits a family fortune, so it always belongs to a person: "their fortune." They're has an apostrophe standing in for a missing letter, shrinking "they are" into one word, so if your child can swap in "they are" and the sentence still makes sense, they're is correct.
This is exactly the kind of trick Parent Spelling Helper's one-scene mnemonic stories are built for: turning an abstract rule into a silly, visual character your child can picture instead of a definition they have to recall cold. A two-minute story is often enough for the difference to stop feeling arbitrary.
The same approach works for to/too/two (too has an extra o for "also, an extra amount"), your/you're (you're always shrinks from "you are"), and its/it's (it's only ever means "it is"). Give each pair one clear visual hook rather than a long list of rules to memorise at once.
Then practise little and often: a handful of quick sentences where your child chooses the right spelling, spread across a few days, beats one long worksheet. This retrieval practice is what actually moves a word from "recognised" to "automatic" when writing.
What age should kids learn there, their and they're?
Most Singapore children meet all three spellings by Primary 2 or 3, but the confusion often lingers into upper primary simply because it was never anchored with a memorable image, not because the child is behind.
How long does it take for the mix-ups to stop?
With a clear visual hook for each word plus a couple of minutes of retrieval practice most days, many parents notice steadier spelling within two to three weeks.
Is teaching the grammar rule enough on its own?
Rules alone tend to fade quickly because they are abstract. Pairing the rule with a vivid picture or short story, then testing recall regularly, is what makes the spelling stick when your child is actually writing.