Are you ready for a Spelling Test?
Yesterday in class we had our weekly spelling test. We have less than 25 days left in the school year so each week the words have gotten a bit harder. Some of the kids are still struggling with sounding out some of the words and often misspell a word with too many vowels or prefixes or suffixes.
You don't often think about how difficult the English language is until you try to teach a child how to read. My daughter Natalie is a writer and I'm always impressed with her knowledge of the English Language. Of course, she did graduate with a degree in English Language so she knows what she's talking about way more than I do. You can link HERE to read an article she wrote about Why English is Weird.
I was correcting the said spelling tests in class yesterday and was blown away by how many of the kids got this word wrong. Infact, over 1/2 the 2nd grade class spelled it incorrectly, that's 15 out of 26 kids to be exact. So, I decided to write down the different spellings then put them up on the whiteboard for Miss N. to review with the class.
Anyway, back to my original thought for this post. It's actually in the form of a question.
How many ways can you spell the word EASIEST?
I want you to think phonetically . . .
Are you thinking?
Do you have a number in your head?
Well, here's the variations my class came up with for the word Easiest:.
1. easyest
2. easist
3. esist
4. eseaist
5. yesyist
6. easyiest
7. easyist
My grandaughter is 8 and in 2nd grade. She is a straight A student and got 98 in spelling this last report card. She spelled it easytest. Go figure
ReplyDeleteThe final days of my teaching career were spent teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) to foreign-born adults. That truly gave me wonderful insight into the difficulties of our language. I read Natalie's article......GOOD one! Thanks for the link to it.
ReplyDeleteI've just read your daughter's post...sounds like English is the child in a blended family!
ReplyDeleteEnglish is a tough language especially with words like Polish and polish! It amazes me we can pronounce anything right!
Wow, people's brains are really interesting! LOL.
ReplyDeleteWhat confuses me are the misspellings that aren't even right phonetically.
On a side note, I had a student named Dynesitnie, pronounced:
Die - est - tiny. Go figure!!
I have always had trouble with spelling as a child (sometimes now too!!) but I was an avid reader. And 'they' say the more a child reads, the better they spell..... if that's true, I wounder how well I would have spelt if I wasn't attached to a book 24/7????
ReplyDeleteMy 2 older grandsons have a time with spelling. But, in kindergarten and 1st grade they were encouraged to spell phonetically. Now, that is how they spell. It seems hard for them to break out of the habit. ie: Easter bascet. Hard C, right? lol
ReplyDeleteI have a "thing" about spelling. And pronunciation. I work with women that murder both of these. I am actually keeping a list of the worst. Where I grew up spelling was stressed in public school. My dad read the paper everyday and was a smart guy. He didn't have a college education but there wasn't a word he couldn't spell. So at home it was stressed, too. I guess I'm old school because now I'm my dad and I can't stand it when my kids misspell. I'm not perfect of course, but seriously - reading and paying attention go a long way to correct spelling! Ok, off my soap box. I do medical transcription so my spelling skills come in handy.
ReplyDelete