The writer's son

The old saying goes that the preacher's child is always the wildest of the bunch. Well, I'm no preacher, but I do make my living stringing together words. I ensure they work well with one another, flow nicely, are used in context, and above all, are spelled correctly. All skills which are, quite sadly, absent in my son.

I've always been fascinated by words, and though I struggled mightily with math, I never had a problem with spelling. Spelling came as naturally to me as breathing.

Which is why my son is going to drive me to an early grave. I don't have obnoxiously high standards for the kid, and I don't expect him to master every subject in school. But spelling is his worst subject, BY FAR, and it tears my heart to shreds each time I watch him take pencil to paper and massacre those wonderful words.

If you think I'm kidding, or prone to hyperbole (as we writers often are), here's my proof: this week's pre-spelling test.



That's right, he missed 18 out of 22 words. EIGHTEEN!

Well, technically, not all of the 18 words were spelled incorrectly. He spelled "blister" right--except it was supposed to be "blizzard." He also spelled "Beth" correctly, although his teacher was expecting "breadth." My favorite may be the word he just made up--"swisted." Although now that I'm writing these out, I'm starting to worry less about his spelling ability, and more about his hearing...

Some of the words he's never encountered in real life, so how could I expect him to spell them right? He wouldn't know thrift if it smacked him upside the head with a coupon, and the closest he's gotten to a catastrophe was losing his Nintendo DS for the past couple weeks (I'd misplaced it, but recently found it--cotastfry averted!). I'll give him some credit though--whoever corrected his paper also spelled it wrong.

I guess I should be more positive. He did spell mistake and giggle right, but he's done both of those a lot. He got simple right--it was simple enough to spell. And he got igloo right, which surprised me--who knew they even discussed igloos in school anymore?

Maybe I am expecting too much. Or maybe it's just that as a writer, it's hard to see him butcher my beloved English language. I certainly don't get upset when he does less than perfect in math--but then again, I always hated math.

Sigh. Maybe I'll start burying books underneath his pillow at night--or his list of spelling words. Maybe he can absorb them by osmosis, in his sleep. And then we'd really find the Beth of his knowledge!

My speling iss bade

I'm a writer by trade, so words are important to me. I have an affinity for the spoken word, and an appreciation of any smart, witty, or touching combo of words put together in poems or song lyrics.

But my true love is the written word. I relish it; to me, there is no greater joy than a new book, a comfy couch, and an afternoon all to myself to enjoy them. It is this love of words, and of reading, that shaped my childhood, and fed my ever-growing imagination. It's also what lead me into my chosen career, first as an editor, correcting everyone else's grammatical missteps, and then as a writer myself, twisting and joining phrases to share my thoughts with readers. (OK, so points off that my livelihood revolves around the very driest form of writing -- technical writing -- but hey, I make a living off words, so I guess it still counts.)

And so, when my young son picked up my love of reading, it filled my heart with gladness. His skill at math and science impressed me, but his love for books truly made me happy.

Until...the other shoe dropped. The spelling shoe, that is. I figured that exposure to the written word, actually seeing how words look on a page, would help him. It's definitely helped his vocabulary, but his spelling...not so much.

At first, spelling didn't matter much. That's what the kindergarten and first-grade teachers told me. Even the second grade teacher said it was okay to spell phonetically, but by third grade, I was beginning to worry. And fourth grade...oy, don't even get me started on that! It actually hurts me to look at his papers sometimes.

I thought it was just me, until a recent breakfast with friends and Mark's new Mad Libs book. He had a great time playing, until my friend Monica, who's a teacher, commented on Mark's spelling.

"We are gonna work on that spelling this summer!" she warned him, and he just sighed.

But he's been thinking about it all week. Tonight, he told me, "Monica says my spelling is terrocious."

"I think she said atrocious," I corrected, but he shook his head.

"No, she said terrocious."

"Is that a combination of terrible and atrocious?" I asked. "Because she's right!"

He gave me the evil eye.

"You're terrocious," he told me, and I just giggled. Then he stomped off to his room to pick a bedtime story.

Oh well. The spelling, with time (from Monica and I!), will improve. So for today, while it's terrocious, I will just be thankful that he loves to read.

Hi kettle, this is the pot. You're black!

Today's spelling lesson comes under the category of "People Who Live in Glass Houses...."

I found this little gem in Mark's homework folder. Right beside it was the most asom spelling of "awesome."





(I can't help it, I'm a writer by trade...these things get to me!)

Spelling counts

Today's lesson: It's hard to use the Internet if you cannot spell.

Mark's got a research project due next Tuesday. He wrote a report about sharks, and now needs a presentation board, with at least six pictures and captions, to go along with it.

He's taking a computer class at school, and though it has no Internet access, he fancies himself a computer whiz. So he started his online research with Google images, which has a lot of shark pictures, but not many captions. He then expanded his search outside of Google.

I left him at the computer while I did laundry. He was typing away and seemed okay, but when I came back 10 minutes later, he was gone.

I found him playing Legos in his room.

"What happened with your shark pictures?" I asked.

He shrugged. "I couldn't find any, so I gave up."

"What do you mean you couldn't find any?"

"None of the Web sites worked," he answered.

I thought maybe the Internet connection was wonky, so I checked it out myself. It worked just fine for me.

I decided on a little troubleshooting. I clicked the Address button to look at the history, to see where exactly he'd been searching.

And that's where I found the problem. He'd typed "www.animlplanut.com" at first, and when that went nowhere, he revised it to "www.animlplanit.com." They both lead to a page not found error message.

There were also a couple other addresses, including "www.discvry.com" and "www.discvryanimls.com." He finally gave up the homework part, and decided to watch some funny animal videos on YouTube by typing the phonetically correct but technically incorrect address "www.utube.com."

Which is a real Web site for the Universal Tube & Rollform Equipment Corporation. They sell new and used tube mills, pipe mills and roll forming machinery.

I have no idea what any of that means, and I found it about as interesting as Mark did. Because after that address, there were no other attempts. I'm guessing that's when Mark's interest in the Internet faded, replaced by his interest in the Legos instead.

And I thought my obsession with proper spelling was just a personality quirk. Turns out good spelling is not only helpful, it's actually essential--unless, of course, you really do want to order new or used tube mills instead of watching crazy cat videos.

Spelling lesson

Yesterday, while driving, a car managed to cut me off not once, but twice. The driver then slowed down to 15 miles below the speed limit.

"What an idiot!" I yelled, forgetting that my impressionable young son was in the car.

"Yeah, he IS an idiot!" the young son agreed. "I-D-O-T!"

Now, I love an ironic situation as much as the next person, but I bit my tongue on this one. I really would be the meanest mom ever if I pointed out that only an I-D-O-T couldn't spell I-D-I-O-T!

"You tell him, Mark!" I said. "Except..."

"What?"

"You missed a letter in I-D-O-T. What letter makes an 'e' sound sometimes?" I asked.

He thought about it a moment, then said, "Oh, I meant I-D-E-O-T!"

I shook my head. "Makes an 'e' sound but is not an 'e.' What other vowel does that?"

He scrunched his face and guessed, "Um, a?"

"I-D-A-O-T?" I asked. And bit my tongue again.

"Oh, I mean 'i'!" he corrected. "I-D-I-O-T. That guy was an I-D-I-O-T!"

I was so proud of my good speller. "Yes, he was," I answered back. "Good job!"

It wasn't until 10 minutes later I realized I'd perhaps focused on the wrong lesson here. A good mom would've focused on driving etiquette (i.e., not yelling names at other drivers) instead of spelling.

So maybe I'm the real I-D-O-T here after all!