This is what was sent home with my child as “spelling homework”. Except that there’s no spelling guideline to link this group of words. It’s all rhyme, and no reason.<\/p>\n
If you were going to try and make some sense out of the group, for actual spelling purposes<\/em>, you might try it this way:<\/p>\n call, off, ball, all small<\/p>\n English words don’t generally end in a single “L”, or a single “F”. Nor a single “S”, when not speaking of an item in plural. It’s what’s called the “FLoSS” rule – you don’t double F, L, or S.<\/p>\n song, long<\/p>\n Both end in the “ong” combination.<\/p>\n saw, draw<\/p>\n The ending is “aw”.<\/p>\n dog, frog, and lost<\/p>\n All three spell like they sound (we have to assume a basic knowledge of letter sounds, at least. I hope.)<\/p>\n walk, talk<\/p>\n Okay, I don’t even know. I haven’t learned a rule for those yet. But that’s five different lessons to apply to the aforementioned list. And do I need to point out that the assigned packet didn’t mention a single spelling rule?<\/em> No, here’s the instructions:<\/p>\n All of the spelling words have the vowel sound in saw<\/strong>. Think about how the vowel sound in saw<\/strong>is spelled.<\/p>\n This isn’t spelling. It’s not even badly organized vocabulary.<\/p>\n I was fortunate enough to have some kind of innate spelling ability. Maybe it’s because I read voraciously as a child – (to the point of picking up stuff that was way beyond my comprehension just so I could see the words they were using.) But I lucked out – my guesses were generally right.<\/p>\n My best friend in middle school, however – she couldn’t spell her way out of a paper bag, bless her. She always said that spell check was the single greatest computing invention of her life.<\/p>\n So as I consider this spelling packet, I wonder where traditional teaching has gone. Over the years, the basics are gradually being discarded in favor of flavor-of-the-month educational pap. Apparently you don’t need to know when to use a soft “c” instead of a hard one, but by gosh you’re gonna trade at least four instructional periods for presentations on homelessness, the dangers of taking drugs, general self-esteem, and Why Bullying Is Bad.<\/p>\n\n
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