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Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Current Events to Share: New Spelling?

http://www.biglearning.com/newsletter.htm#kidnews

posted by Karen Cole @ 10:57 AM

4 Comments:

At 8:03 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I certainly hope this doesn't pass it would be so very confusing for people who are so accustomed to spelling the way they were taught in school.

 
At 6:06 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I agree that our spelling systems seems to have not a bit a rhyme or reason to it.
But like the educators noted in the article, I agree that it's not all about the spelling.
A good portion of the words in our "English" language are not actually "English". Hence all the different spelling patterns.
And, if you know the meaning of a root (base) word or a prefix/suffix, you can almost guess what a word means. We'd lose all that if we changed to a generic spelling pattern - not to mention losing the history of all the wonderful words we use every day.
By the way, I teach 3-5 Gifted Children and they LOVE studying etymology (word history). THEY say it helps them with their vocabulary and their SPELLING. It's more the understanding WHY it's spelled that way.

 
At 7:24 AM, Blogger Karen Cole said...

I agree with both of you - changing the spelling of the whole English language isn't going to happen.

To me, the fact that there are 400 spellings for 42 sounds - that's an argument against extending phonics instruction past the time when kids master basic reading (though teaching roots and such IS time well spent). At that point, reading advancement comes from copious reading experience and vocabulary building. It's just silly to keep teaching all 400 spellings explicitly. -KC

 
At 9:08 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

My almost 14-yr.-old son would love it. That's how he spells now!

 

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