Watch this short little clip of one of my favourite favorite poets, Taylor Mali. I personally, think he’s brilliant.
I’m no spelling whiz. Never have been. DW and mom can attest to that. Fortunately, I know my words and can tell the difference between ewe and you. I know when to use their, there and they’re. I know when to use to, too and two. Even affect and effect. My spelling, on the other hand, isn’t quite so good. And being an American in Canada doesn’t help that fact.
One of the positives of being a substitute teacher is that I sometimes get to go into Crash’s classroom. Naturally, I’m in teacher mode, not dad mode, so it’s a little different. Anyway, the other day was one of those days. I was in as a resource teacher and had gone in to assist his teacher. Or rather, assist the students who needed. They were to be writing a sentence using a word from their word wall.
The first thing I noticed was that favorite was spelled wrong err differently. It was favourite. Sneaky British spelling. How am I supposed to help him with spelling words when he’s being taught to spell them differently? When I type the word favourite, there’s a red line under it. There’s a whole list words I’d spell incorrectly on his test. In other words, I’d fail a 3rd grade spelling test.
- Favorite/Favourite
- Color/Colour
- Neighbor/Neighbour
- Pajamas/Pyjamas
- Center/Centre
- Meter/Metre
- Liter/Litre
- Any word that ends in er
These are just the ones I could think of off the top of my head. Good thing we didn’t put him in French Immersion. I’m going to have a hard enough time teaching him English!
All In A Dad's Work 
First off, that video was brilliant. XD
Second, you won’t be alone with the spelling woes. I’m determined that little missy is going to know how to spell properly, because what kind of a writer would I be if my kid was always writing in text speak? But a lot of the examples you gave are ones that I’m going to screw up too because I always go by the American spelling. That might seem odd, but it’s because I learned most of my spelling/grammar/etc from reading, and most of the authors that I loved growing up were American ones. Thus I don’t put in those sneaky u’s, and I RARELY ever spelling anything with that odd French-sounding “re”.
Ah, the joys of being a parent when all the rules have changed (or, in this case, you’ve ignored the rules yourself…lol)
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I’ve always been a British spelling person. My daughter will learn that way, too. But one of my favourite (there’s that sneaky u) authors, Steven Erikson, is Canadian and his books use British spelling. It seems I read plenty of British authors, too, so I see the British spelling all the time.
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I grew up learning to spell the like how the British spells it…and then microsoft came and underlined all those words in red. Not wrong… and as you likely pointed out, just different! 😀
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Exactly – not wrong just different. Unless it’s a spelling test? I wonder if he’d still get credit on the test if he spelled it the “American” way.. Guess I’ll have to study his list of words with him, should he ever bring one home.
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Hmmmm…shouldn’t be penalised for spelling tests either, I think. Especially since both ways are acceptable (OK, maybe not to some!). You can always blame it on the instructions, which probably need to specify things like “please spell in the American way” or “the British way”…oh lordy! The world we live in. LOL
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I guess it’ll just depend on how picky the teacher decides to be 🙂
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