Spell It Out
January 26th, 2010
Spelling 101
Like writing itself, the art of spelling has also taken serious hits in the past few decades. It’s easy enough to blame PC spell-checkers and they certainly deserve much of the blame, but not all of it.
Good spelling takes effort. Work. Discipline. Finesse. It is also a necessary skill that should not be short-changed.
Not that I’m dissing spell-checkers; I’m not. Entirely. They absolutely have their place, especially for us writers whose fingers can move faster than our brains, more concerned with the flow than the individual words. However, spell-checkers have their limitations. Big time. Homonyms spring to mind. A word might very well be spelled correctly and be entirely the wrong word. Another common oops with spell-checkers is commonly confused words such as affect or effect, accept, except, you’re, your, and on and on.
Strong, effective, in-charge writers are good spellers.
At least we work at it.
Spelling and writing should go hand in hand. Well, duh, you say? Not so much. Let’s face it, spelling, like that other bugaboo of the writing world, grammar, has obtained a bad reputation. Spelling, schmelling. Getting students interested in spelling, not matter what age group, has never been more challenging; creativity is key.
Reason number 97 why the Grammar Punk™ dice were created. By breaking words into their most basic elements—letters into words—and by requiring students to use specific letters to form words, students therefore pay more attention to the words they create.
We’ll be looking at some ways to make this important skill approachable, achievable, and even, gulp, fun. We’d love to hear from the great teachers out there who might have their own cool ideas about spelling.