Kweshun

[evilegg]

I dated a dude for many years while in my twenties whose mom was a third grade teacher and she had MAJOR ISSUES with allowing creative spelling, and it was very much encouraged in the lower grades of her school district. She said it led to the kids pronouncing the words wrong and not identifying related words, and that they essentially had to

Comments

[bandicoot]

I could read and do arithmetic before I started school. I could read because I sat in my dad's lap after he got home from work and he read the newspaper to me. Pretty soon I could read it myself. In school we learned phonics, not to spell but to pronounce. Say what you want, it produced kids who could actually read, write and spell, and in a fraction of the time. What passes for education now is criminal. Period. And if you doubt it, get a copy of an entry test for high school dating from around 1900. I doubt if most college grads today could answer those questions. Mumble, mumble, gripe, mumble ... ;)

[m_fallenangel]

I only sound out long and technical words, like chemicals, etc. If I'm familiar with the word, it's a complete symbol

[platypus]

I was reading when I was three, and writing little stories soon after (totally phonetic spelling, not even spaces between words, but you could sound them out). Nobody had to intervene on the spelling; it fell into line very quickly, because I'm a really visual person and I absorbed correct spelling from the ton of books I was reading. It always surprises me that that's not the case with most people. My only problem (which I still have to some extent) is being unable to correctly pronounce some of the words I know, because I got them from reading and never heard anybody say them.

[coercedbynutmeg]

THIS THIS THIS!

I remember my freshman year in college was the first time I ever heard the word "vehement" used out loud. I had always thought it was pronounced "vuh-HEE-ment" but it's actually "VEE-uh-ment."

It's like the little twinge of schadenfreude I feel every time I hear someone mispronounce the word "schadenfreude." :-)

[platypus]

Dammit, I've always mentally pronounced that VEH-heh-ment.

[coercedbynutmeg]

Hee!

A girl whose husband works with mine just recently had a baby and named her Anneliese. The proper pronunciation of this name is "Onnalisa" but she's calling her "Anna-lees." KILLS me. The problem is I'm not sure if she knows she's butchering it or not and we're not good enough friends that I can ask her.

[kimatha]

I have never heard of this creative spelling thing. How appalling! I think it is hilarious when people play fast and loose with language, but only when they already know what the rules are.

I remember learning the alphabet in kindergarten. We learned a letter a day, and each kid was assigned a letter and that kid's mom had to sew a little doll that had that letter on it (my mom sewed "Mr. S" who was a little superhero with a cape). Can you imagine schools having moms do that today?

I don't really remember learning to read. I learned really fast, and then I would sneak books and read ahead.

My little brother had these alliterative phrases when he learned letters. I remember "Mary Mouse makes music" and "Freddy Fox falls flat".

[evilegg]

That's terrible about Freddy. I would have found that very upsetting.

It has to begin at home, with the mothers who don't sew. When people are naming their kids fucked up names (Destiny shouldn't have multiple spellings and it's a stupid name) and spelling it wrong, too, it's hard to enforce the idea of correct and incorrect spelling.

[ersigh]

I was reading by the time I was 3 so I don't remember.

It doesn't make any sense to me to allow creative spelling to be used. It's one thing to have activities where the students are given the opportunity to do that so that they can explore the relationships of letters as they understand it and then be guided to how they actually work... but beyond that, it's like teaching the kids the wrong language and then they have to relearn.

As far as how I see stuff when I'm reading, I see shapes... when I run into something that isn't familiar I then break it down into the various shapes that make it up. I suspect this is why I'm not good at pronouncing words that I've only read and never heard.