Beyond The Desk

Here are the spelling words for this week.
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Here is the link for the Spelling City. Don’t forget that, if you do the practice, get 100% and bring it in, you can receive a bonus mark on your Spelling Test!

Here are the spelling words for this week:

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Don’t forget! You can bring in your Spelling Practice Test and get a free extra mark on your spelling test! Great Deal! Unlimited time offer! Get it while it’s hot!

Here is the spelling for this week. For Spelling City, it will use the American way of spelling “Centre”. Students may use either way of spelling on the Spelling Test.

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Here is the link to Spelling City. Don’t forget! If you bring in your practice test with 100%, you can get an easy extra bonus mark on the Spelling Test!

As we look forward once again to the spelling test at the end of this week, you may have experienced at some point this year the dreaded question from your beautiful son or daughter.

“Why do I have to do this?”

I found this interesting article today that may give you some ammunition in trying to explain why practicing spelling words can be important.

Yesterday 275 kids gathered in Washington, DC, to take a spelling test. Today, they’ll start spelling in the preliminary rounds until just 50 spellers move on to the semifinals of the National Spelling Bee. A few of them are here by luck. Most of the spellers, however, got here through incredible hard work and determination. This is no fluke. This is the culmination of hours and hours of intense studying, rote memorization, and the deep exploration of language. These kids are the best of the orthographic best.

Why bother?
Even our smartphones are now capable of correcting our spelling, and contemporary spelling conventions offer wide latitude in expression.  A legitimate conversation today might consist of this jumble of characters:  Sup? Nm, u? K, gtg, ttyl. While some have questioned the value in taking spelling seriously, I think it’s a skill for the masses. Spelling should not be the private domain of one subset of specialized geeks.

Rote memorization is not all bad.
Remember your times tables? You do?  Well, that was rote memorization. And thanks to mnemonics like King Phillip Came Over For Good Spaghetti, you can quickly access information that lets you move forward in a hurry. Can you imagine how much more difficult geometry and algebra would be if you had to work out 7 x 7 = 49 every single time?

Words are the building blocks of thought.
While we have generic words like “thing” and “stuff” to get us through those situations when we are at a loss for words, language allows for sophistication. Shakespeare might have written “Could I think of you as like that one thing? You’re better than that stuff.”  But a richer vocabulary offers the romance of “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate.”  If we can’t spell words, we can’t communicate our most nuanced thoughts.

Spelling is so much more than memorization.
Spelling connects us to history and culture, to science, poetry, and mathematics. A word is more than the sum of its parts. Words tell stories and act as the doorway to all the realms of knowledge. For example, I was once given the word S-I-L-I-C-I-F-E-R-O-U-S in a spelling bee. I’d never heard the word before. I asked for the definition. Containing silicon. I asked for the etymology. Latin. I asked for the part of speech. Adjective.

With this information, I was able to construct the word in its entirety. I knew about silicon, and thus had the S-I-L-I-C-I beginning. The Latin root told me that the middle part of the word would be F-E-R rather than P-H-O-R and the fact that it was an adjective, not a noun, told me that the word ended in O-U-S rather than U-S. Siliciferous. One word can encapsulate an entire education.

When we encourage kids to learn to spell and applaud their accomplishments, we are celebrating the fullness of thought that can only come from human beings.

Rock on, National Spelling Bee contestants!