Teaching Kids How To Spell Makes You Realize How Lucky You Are

Teaching Kids How To Spell Makes You Realize How Lucky You Are I recently picked up a part-time job tutoring elementary schoolers from low-income homes in English Language Arts. I was given a Student Learning Plan for each child. The usual suspects were on these lists of expectations: students need to know the difference between adjectives and adverbs, be able to identify synonyms and antonyms as well as prefixes and suffixes, and be able to make graphic organizers and break down essays into main ideas and supporting details. Heres where things get complicated. I need to make sure my students learn all these basics so they can pass the multiple choice post-test theyre going to take in a few months. At the same time, I need to somehow teach these children how to spell. Because they cant spell. They really, really, really cant spell. Teaching someone how to read and write in English makes a person realize exactly how fed up the modern English written language actually is. Working with someone who cant spell makes your long for the Elizabethan Age, back before the written language was standardized, back when there was ONLY creative spelling. Now we live in an English-language world where the classic Sound it out will get you out the gate, but barely. When my students ask me why person is spelled with an o instead of a u (But the u makes the uh sound!) or why people has an o in it (But it only has an ee sound, it doesnt have an oh sound, why is the oh in there?), I have to give them the most dreaded of grown-up responses: Because. I hate being the grown-up who says Because. I never wanted to be the grown-up who said Because. But I only have a limited amount of time to teach them spelling, I have to devote the bulk of our afternoons and evenings together to drumming reading and writing comprehension concepts into their brains, making sure they can take effective notes on written passages and pass multiple choice tests. Still, my heart drops into my stomach when I go through the sentences they write and correct the mistakes. Seeing a perfectly spelled sentence with these kids feels like finding the holy grail. Its the rare sentence where only two or three words are misspelled. Its terrible how often I come across a sentence where EVERY word is misspelled. Those sentences feel like a punch to the gut and face. Reading out loud is no less a challenge for them. They stumble and stop and start. I can see their little faces turn red. Theyre tired of stumbling. They want to skate through sentences. They dont want to hate reading or writing. But how can they not hate it a little bit? How can you not hate climbing a mountain when you never seem close to getting to the top? Its something I havent thought about often enough, how lucky I was to be born into a reading household. It is a privilege to come from a family with bookshelves in almost every room, a family that regularly visited bookstores and libraries, a family where both my parents regularly read to me before bed. Ive been a reader for so long I forget sometimes that I didnt come straight out of the womb with my nose buried in a book. I forget that I was taught, because I was taught at such an early age and in such an organic way that I cant remember the learning being a struggle. I remember struggling through my multiplication tables and Spanish verbs, but I never remember struggling with reading. I want so much for the kids I work with. I want them to be able to pick up A Wrinkle in Time or From The Mixed-Up Files Of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler  and be able to dive into the pages as easily as they would cannonball into a swimming pool. I want them to rock their college admissions essay and I want them to go to a great school and read great books and write great essays about those books. I have gargantuan dreams for my students, but we have to take miniature steps to cross the great divide between where they are now and where I hope theyll someday be. So heres something to be grateful for today. Be grateful if reading feels like breathing and be grateful if you can write a sentence without wondering if all the words are spelled correctly. Its so easy to forget that being literate isnt a give-in, its a privilege we have so, so, so many people in our pasts to thank for.