Misty

It's funny that this topic came up now. I just started reading JOhn
Holt's "Learning All the Time", the first part of which deals with
reading and writing and specifically with invented spelling. As a
teacher I can say that like everything else the views on approaches
like phonics, invented spelling, etc. is an ever swinging pendelum,
constantly changing. So the concerns about learning to spell, or
write, or whatever are completely unfounded. There was a time about
10 yrs. ago that the trend was to immerse a child completely in a
print rich environment and they would learn to read and write. This
was the "trend" called Whole Language that was occuring while I was
in college. Does this approach sound familiar, I think it was as
close as a school as ever come to unschooling. But, of course some
power at be from above decided it wasn't working after only a couple
of years and the pendelum swung again. My point in all this is that
even if your child is in school there's no more reason to believe
that he will be a better speller. My husband is a horrible speller
and has terrible grammar. I on the other hand was considered a good
speller growing up, but as an adult I find myself struggling at
times, both of us grew up in public schools.

This leads me to my second point. Many people say that reading
helps you learn to spell. Maybe for some, but I disagree with that
for me. I must read the word restaurant several times a day, but
still I find often when I write my spell check catches that I write
restraunt. So reading it often hasn't improved my spelling. I came
to have good "English skills" through my mother. I vividly recall
writing papers in grade school, afterwards my mom would mark with
brackets the areas that had a mistake be it spelling, run-ons,
punctuation whatever, and then would hand it back for me to find and
fix. So, again I didn't learn it through workbooks or school.
(Though not exactly the unschooling way either). Just from what
I've read I'd reccomend reading "Learning All the Time".

I'd never seen what Jennifer posted about only the first and last
letter mattering, but I found it very interesting. Being a teacher
of the deaf I've seen some very interesting invented spelling.
Often I get e-mails from deaf adults that my husband can't decipher
b/c of the bad spelling and grammar he'll ask, "is that English?"
Yet these are very intelligient people, some of whom have even
traveled the world. Doesn't seem to stop them.

Just thought I'd share some thoughts.

Misty