The "visual" spelling TOTE is shown in Figure A:

Figure B shows the TOTE of a phonetic speller:

The phonetic speller tests the spelling s/he has constructed by finding out if it "sounds right." This requires comparing the sound of the word s/he has generated with the sound of the word originally presented. The operation phase of the phonetic speller involves "sounding out" the word by breaking it down verbally into syllables, and sounding out individual letters from there. The breaking down process may be done either aloud or internally. Once each of the letters has been sounded out, the individual then repronounces them in sequence, and tests the pronunciation against that of the word originally presented. We have abbreviated the process of sounding out as A^i,,e →Aⁱ. The "i,e" superscript to the auditory component tells us that the original word may be broken down internally or aloud. Sometimes the phonetic speller will even have an operation phase in which the student makes a visual image of the letters in each syllable or phoneme. To test the spelling, however, the individual pronounces the image (aloud or internally) and compares it with the pronunciation of the presented word. We have abbreviated this operation as A^i,,e →Vⁱ_c→A^i.: break word down into syllables or phonemes —construct image of letters in syllables—pronounce spelling.

Although the incongruence between mismatched pronunciations could be represented kinesthetically, as with the visual speller, we have chosen to show that it could be represented auditorily in this TOTE. Here, the speller may actually hear words such as "That's it" (Aⁱ₊) in his/her head if the pronunciations match, or "No, try again" (Aⁱ_-) if they do not. The student may alternatively hear a separate harmonious (Aⁱ₊), or discordant (Aⁱ_-) sound as a representation of congruence or incongruence.

It has been our experience that, since the visual coding of the English language frequently does not follow phonetic rules, individuals with a visual strategy are consistently much better spellers. "Their", "there", and "they're", for example, may all be pronounced the same although visually they are different. For the phonetic speller, "ghoti" may be the appropriate spelling for the word "fish" — that is, "gh" as in laugh; "o" as in women; and "ti" as in mo/zon! The sounding out or phonics strategy may be very good for oral reading presentations where what is important is that the words are pronounced clearly; but for the specific task of spelling, it is inappropriate. The name of the system itself — "phonics" — cannot be spelled accurately with a phonetic strategy.

In most educational institutions, children are not yet taught the formal aspects of task–specific learning when they are learning to spell — they are simply given gross feedback for whether they have spelled "correctly" or "incorrectly." The children are left on their own to come up with a strategy (of which those previously described are only two of a large number of possible permutations)

which may or may not be the most effective for the task of spelling.[11] They are not taught strategies, but rather simply content.

What we hope to accomplish by making such formal strategies explicit through the neurolinguistic programming model is to increase the effectiveness of education in all disciplines. Many types of outcomes, to be achieved effectively and efficiently, involve the utilization of specific representational systems in specific sequences. Others are more flexible with respect to which representational systems occupy which nodes in the TOTE sequence. By using the elicitation and design techniques of NLP these distinctions may be made explicitly available.

The goal of TOTE and representational systems analysis is twofold:

a) To find the most appropriate representational systems for the TOTE steps that lead to a particular outcome (such as using the visual representational system for spelling).

b) To be able to use all representational systems as resources for learning and performing. This means that in cases where more than one representational system may be used for a particular step in a task (such as testing the nail in the hammering example), that one may choose to substitute another representational strategy should it be appropriate or necessary for the context. This serves to greatly expand one's flexibility and repertoire of choices requisite variety.

2.4 Modifying TOTE Notation for Strategies.

The TOTE is the basic unit used to identify a particular sequence of behavior. A strategy is the basic unit of analysis of a particular TOTE, or set of TOTEs. Strategy analysis breaks a TOTE down into its representational components and describes the order of the particular representational activity that leads to the specific behavioral outcome.

We have found TOTE diagrams to be somewhat laborious and impractical as a notational format for strategies. Moreover, it is often inefficient and sometimes arbitrary to try to identify the specific function, within the framework provided by the TOTE, of each step in a sequence of behavior. As we mentioned earlier the test phase of one TOTE may be part of the operation phase of another TOTE. Making this functional distinction is sometimes just a matter of how you punctuate the sequence; that is, it depends on where you choose to start analyzing the sequence, and which representations you decide to put where in the TOTE framework. Spending too much time on such issues when you are communicating with an individual or group can be counterproductive.

In neurolinguistic programming we have chosen to streamline this TOTE framework into a linear string of representations that we call a "strategy." The two most important aspects of a strategy are:

a) The representational system in which information is coded.

b) The sequential relationship between representations.

With the strategy, of course, we will presuppose the underlying TOTE framework: every strategy will be assumed to perform some tests on the input experience of the individual and to contain an operate point and an exit point. Some strategies, though, will be complex and lengthy, incorporating many strings of TOTEs. The functional significance of each individual step (that is, whether it is a representation involved in a test, operation, indicating an incongruence, both a test and an operation, etc.) will not always be specifically identified unless, of course, it is important for securing the outcome. And even though we will be primarily using linear notation for strategies, we will feel free to employ the TOTE diagram when it is useful to illustrate important aspects of some behavioral sequence.

Thus, we could notate the diagram of the visual spelling TOTE shown in figure A as:

This shows that the individual inputs auditorily, by listening to the word presented (the "e,i" superscript indicates that this input may come from either external or internal sources—this may also be indicated by putting no superscript above the A, showing that it is not specified whether the auditory stimulus comes from internal or external sources). The individual next constructs a visual image from the auditory input (Vⁱ_c) and tests it against some remembered image (Vⁱ_c / Vⁱ_r). If the internal feeling (Kⁱ) the individual derives from the test is negative (-) the individual loops back to the beginning of the strategy and processes the word again; if the internal feeling is positive ( + ) the individual exits.