The Millers

>I have read this before. What is the harm in this. My mom was a
>teacher and she always told me to look a word up. I wasn't excited to
>do it, but I did. and I alays thought that I'll tell my kids the same
>thing. When my dd asks me to spell a word, I ask her to sound it out
>and I help her figure it out. Why is this so bad?
>Stacey
++++++++++++++++++
Hi. I'm new to the group too. Very exciting stuff here, and I have my "own
cup of tea" that needs helps and will post soon. But, as for "go look it
up"..........

When I was (a child), and I asked my mother the same question, she gave the
same answer..."look it up." What do you think I did?

I got mad at her and mad at myself for not knowing how to spell it. And I
DID NOT look it up. Instead, I dumbed myself down by choosing a smaller,
easier word to spell. The sad part is that I still do this today.
UGGGG....what deprograming I still have to do.

In fact, daily when I post emails, I cannot spell certain words. But, I do
have good news for you. I can now spell the following words below because I
have misspelled them sooo many times that spell-check has automatically
"looked them up" for me.

My list of big words!
illiterate
definitely
separate

Crystal and Sorscha (7 3/4)
+Radical life-learners, recovering classicals, well-used brainers (yes, this
one was too good)+

jlh44music

Welcome Crystal!

>> same answer..."look it up." What do you think I did?
> I got mad at her and mad at myself for not knowing how to spell
it. And I DID NOT look it up. Instead, I dumbed myself down by
choosing a smaller, easier word to spell. The sad part is that I
still do this today. UGGGG....what deprograming I still have to do.

We all have our "ghosts", you'll get there! I'm still working hard
on it!

> In fact, daily when I post emails, I cannot spell certain words. >>

And you're not alone (I have to resist the urge when I post and see
later what I wrote, to go back and correct my typos etc! I'm getting
good a just letting it go - the meaning is clear).

>>But, I do have good news for you. I can now spell the following
words below because I have misspelled them sooo many times that spell-
check has automatically "looked them up" for me.>>>>>

Yippee!

You reminded me of a time when I was in COLLEGE and wrote a letter to
my mother, I spelled definitely wrong (defanately or something like
that) and she made a BIG deal about it, writing back the correct
spelling. What I remembered (other than to make sure I spelled it
correctly going forward) was the way she spoke to me, shaming me,
making me feel stupid, instead of being kind. It hurt.

I look forward to you being here and sharing your story!
Jann

Donald and Sandra Winn

I'm new to this board as well, HI everyone... :-)

Unschooling is still very new to me but one thing that
touched about asking a child to "look-it up was the
following: Would a child think that "k" would be the
place to look for the word "cat."? What about words
that don't follow the rules but break them? i.e.
break/brake Wouldn't a child more than likely go to
the "bra" spelling? What about gnat? Or right, write,
rite? Read/red feed/fed? I guess I see the dictionary
as a valuable resource if one is looking up
definitions but not for someone who doesn't know how
to spell.

I'll ask my 7yo dd how she "thinks" something is
spelled and at the first missed letter I say, "That
was a great try but this is how you spell it." She is
also learning by typing on the computer (because she
wants to) and because of that is learning how to use
the spell and grammar check. That is what is working
for her as of now.

Just my .02 cents.

Sandy Winn



__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com

soggyboysmom

If there's an 'oddity' I might mention to DS (if he wanted to look
something up) something like "that's one of those odd words - gnat
actually starts with g" and let him go from there. Mostly I'm right
there with him looking things up -together- so it's no big deal.
Generally, if he asks and I know the answer already, I'll just tell
him. Often, the odd words generate additional discussion (why in the
world is it spelled like THAT?) and THEN we pull out the dictionary
together and look up the roots of it - DS is 7 and is learning how
to decipher the linguistic backgrounds of words as noted in the
dictionary (he knows to look for OE or Fr or whatever and if it's
one that he hasn't met with, we check it out and find out what it
is).
--Deb
--- In [email protected], Donald and Sandra Winn
<aplan4life@y...> wrote:
> I'm new to this board as well, HI everyone... :-)
>
> Unschooling is still very new to me but one thing that
> touched about asking a child to "look-it up was the
> following: Would a child think that "k" would be the
> place to look for the word "cat."? What about words
> that don't follow the rules but break them? i.e.
> break/brake Wouldn't a child more than likely go to
> the "bra" spelling? What about gnat? Or right, write,
> rite? Read/red feed/fed? I guess I see the dictionary
> as a valuable resource if one is looking up
> definitions but not for someone who doesn't know how
> to spell.
>
> I'll ask my 7yo dd how she "thinks" something is
> spelled and at the first missed letter I say, "That
> was a great try but this is how you spell it." She is
> also learning by typing on the computer (because she
> wants to) and because of that is learning how to use
> the spell and grammar check. That is what is working
> for her as of now.
>
> Just my .02 cents.
>
> Sandy Winn
>
>
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
> http://mail.yahoo.com

camden

Hi
My mil is nuts about spelling. She took a letter my sil wrote her ( yes, my sil is not a good speller) and found all the spelling mistakes and wrote her back a 4 page letter telling her all the grammatical & spelling errors she could find and how to use a dictionary to look up "her words". I always found it difficult to look up a word I couldnt spell to begin with :)
Long story short: my sil wrote her a letter back filled with spelling mistakes on purpose. She put a little sticky on it and said "since your so bored with your life I've sent you something to do........... look them all up please !!"
As you can tell its not a good relationship but making her dil feel bad doesnt help.
And she wonders why my kids wont write to her after this !!!
Carol
*********************************************************************
Welcome Crystal!

>> same answer..."look it up." What do you think I did?
> I got mad at her and mad at myself for not knowing how to spell
it. And I DID NOT look it up. Instead, I dumbed myself down by
choosing a smaller, easier word to spell. The sad part is that I
still do this today. UGGGG....what deprograming I still have to do.

We all have our "ghosts", you'll get there! I'm still working hard
on it!

> In fact, daily when I post emails, I cannot spell certain words. >>

And you're not alone (I have to resist the urge when I post and see
later what I wrote, to go back and correct my typos etc! I'm getting
good a just letting it go - the meaning is clear).

>>But, I do have good news for you. I can now spell the following
words below because I have misspelled them sooo many times that spell-
check has automatically "looked them up" for me.>>>>>

Yippee!

You reminded me of a time when I was in COLLEGE and wrote a letter to
my mother, I spelled definitely wrong (defanately or something like
that) and she made a BIG deal about it, writing back the correct
spelling. What I remembered (other than to make sure I spelled it
correctly going forward) was the way she spoke to me, shaming me,
making me feel stupid, instead of being kind. It hurt.

I look forward to you being here and sharing your story!
Jann




SPONSORED LINKS Secondary school education Graduate school education Home school education
Graduate school education online High school education Chicago school education


------------------------------------------------------------------------------
YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS

a.. Visit your group "unschoolingbasics" on the web.

b.. To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[email protected]

c.. Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.


------------------------------------------------------------------------------



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]