Can you spell "misspell"?

Spelling mistakes.... gar!!

Anyone who knows me IRL will howl at the thought that spelling mistakes drive me up the wall because I am constantly heard asking "How do you spell...?" But hey, I have the right to be a hypocrite, yes?? ;-)

Few things bother me more than spelling mistakes on people's personal blogs, in e-groups, and mass group e-mails. Very few things. Especially when those mistakes are made by mothers who are homeschooling their children. Especially then. RARH!!!

Granted some of my impatience is born of (literally) countless hours on the phone with home-schooling moms bewailing the abysmal spelling scores on their children's "end of year" standardized test results. "But she/he loves to read!?!" (Did'ya catch the whiney tone?)

Um.... yea, so? Obviously reading ability has precious little to do with aptitude for spelling (or his/her scores wouldn't be so low). They are two separate skills that *must* be taught as such. Spelling is NOT learned by osmosis, or absorbed by extensive reading. Vocabulary perhaps, but not spelling.

Or don't bother teaching your kids how to spell. Why should I care? After all, they're growing up with spell checks embedded in every word-processing program imaginable. Who needs to learn to spell well anyway? Funny thing... when I was growing up (back in the dark ages of course), Mom would always answer my spelling queries with "Go look it up in the dictionary."

I know first-hand how had it is to find a word you're spelling phonetically aloud that's not spelled phonetically in print. I "get it" that homographs are tricky and that spell check won't catch homophones either. And I know if you look, you'll be able to find mistakes in what I've written; so I wouldn't bother taking the time to hunt. It probably wouldn't be much of a hunt. LOL

Besides, I'm not home-schooling so you can't say the pot is calling the kettle black. :-D

/end rant