Jaime S. Reflection (Graves Ch. 18)

Can you really blame a child for having difficulty with spelling? The English language is one of the hardest languages to learn. Why can't we just write the sounds we hear in the words? Forget all the rules: 'i' before the 'e' except after 'C', drop the 'y' and add 'ies.' I remember my EDEP professor telling our class that if you grew up a poor speller, you're LIKELY to remain a poor speller. It doesn't mean you're not intelligent. I don't know how true that is but Chapter 18 does state that poor spelling is not correlated with intelligence. In fact, Presidents, professional writers, doctors, and other professionals have trouble with spelling.

This chapter states that spelling is important because the writer will be able to focus on the content of the writing rather than a few misspelled words. At Kapalama, my fourth grade students have Spelling homework every week. They have to write 12 different words five times. Then the following day they have to alphabetize, then write the definition and then finally use the words in sentences. Even after writing the words five times, the children still misspell the words in their sentences. One thing my mentor does, that I will try and do in my own classroom, is when they revise their drafts, they have to circle the words that they think they misspelled. I think that's a better idea than having the teacher correct the spelling with a red pen.