Howdy,
     Read about your first meeting...  Haven't read other mail in this 
packet, so you may have gotten better ideas from others.
     Compared to our experiences with the local public school, it's 
tempting to suggest you should consider yourself LUCKY the lady
ZR>wants me to spend  4+1/2 hours per week studying spelling and writing
     Some "Professional" educators (as opposed to DEDICATED TEACHERS) 
have come up with various sophistries to justify not spending any time 
on spelling at all.  As a result, our youngest is now in middle school 
with great creativity -- of spelling.  Unfortunately, some real teachers 
have been hired, and now COUNT spelling, when grading assignments.  Not 
just in English or closely related courses, either.  History and science 
teachers find spelling important.
ZR>Aaron's strong subjects (areas of interest) are science and art.  I
ZR>am  wondering if I'm doing him a disservice in pushing writing skills
ZR>when he  really wants to do science... 
     No, no, a thousand times no!  You are not doing him a disservice in 
pushing writing skills.  Scientists don't just mess around in their 
laboratories.  What good would research do, if the scientist couldn't 
record the results?  
     Don't get too heavy just yet, however.  He's 6?  He's not going to 
be making any scientific breakthroughs soon, and what he does in science 
will, to some extent be messing around for several years.  Before 
getting too deeply into spelling and writing, however, you can use his 
interest in other things to hook him into reading.  Of course, it'll be 
a few years before he can read "The Right Stuff" or any other serious 
work about the exploits of scientists, artists, or scientist/artists 
like da Vinci.
     You've got one advantage unavailable in the classroom.  You can tie 
together the things he wants to do, with those he doesn't.  For example, 
he can try working in a different art medium -- after he writes a report 
about how it's the same as/different from what he's been doing. Things 
he's going to be doing anyway can become behavior modification rewards. 
 
     I'm not advocating deviousness, but if he spends 3 hours reading 
about art, does it count as 3 hours of each?  Or, if he spends an hour 
using paints to create a chart of the alphabet or phonics -- would that 
count as one hour of each?  If you give him a spelling test, and he's to 
spell the words by sculpting them in clay...  
     While reading may be the single most important skill Aaron will 
learn in the next few years, writing and spelling have a major impact on 
how others view him as an adult.  They affect how he communicates, and 
how others accept his ideas.  Regardless of what career he chooses, he 
will need writing and spelling. Some people complain they never use the 
Algebra (or other "foreign" language) they were required to learn. I 
don't remember anyone suggesting they never use writing or spelling.  
Look around in some other on-line conferences.  You can find people 
trying to communicate, but sorely in need of spelling skills. 
                                        cdwood                                
 
  
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