Mama: 1; Vowels: 0
One of Boo's homework assignments is that she has to write a sentence every day describing something she learned in class. Usually I ask her what she wants to write, then I help her with the spelling by sounding the words out. Not surprisingly (because this is, after all, English that she's trying to spell), she doesn't always guess the correct vowel, and last night she got really discouraged about it.
This is one of those parent situations where there was really nothing I could think of that was encouraging. Saying what I felt was the truth ("Yeah, English is a bitch to spell and even if you're really smart you'll probably be really grateful for the invention of the spellchecker for the rest of your life") wasn't, I thought, exactly the uplifting words of encouragement she needed.
So, I told her about The Great Vowel Shift instead.
My thinking--if it can be called such--was that if she knew that the vowel sounds weren't always spelled the same, that they were arbitrary and messy, she might feel a bit better about finding it hard to do. Amazingly enough, this worked.
Later, I had to Google how to spell "pink" in Hebrew, but still, mostly a win in the mom column.
This is one of those parent situations where there was really nothing I could think of that was encouraging. Saying what I felt was the truth ("Yeah, English is a bitch to spell and even if you're really smart you'll probably be really grateful for the invention of the spellchecker for the rest of your life") wasn't, I thought, exactly the uplifting words of encouragement she needed.
So, I told her about The Great Vowel Shift instead.
My thinking--if it can be called such--was that if she knew that the vowel sounds weren't always spelled the same, that they were arbitrary and messy, she might feel a bit better about finding it hard to do. Amazingly enough, this worked.
Later, I had to Google how to spell "pink" in Hebrew, but still, mostly a win in the mom column.