DT>Through daily practice and teacher guidance, the child 
DT>gradually moves towards conventional spelling. 
 RM> And here's where the potential problems develop!  WHAT type
 RM> of "practice"; more reading and writing only?  WHAT teacher
 RM> "guidance"?  A new teacher, reading this, would be left to
 RM> assume that spelling lists are a bad thing, and that the
 RM> students are better served doing a lot of reading, writing,
 RM> and "risk taking", yet there is nothing in the above which
 RM> supports the notion that for SPELLING there is anything
 RM> better than word lists.  To promote WRITING in context, or
 RM> to develop a love of reading, a spelling list is of little
 RM> good, otoh... One needs BOTH... Imo, of course....
CB>Exactly! Why not develop spelling lists from the writing errors and the
CB>vocabulary lists from class reading. Then you have the best of both. Use
CB>lists from the child's experience - then expect (demand?) that these
CB>words be spelled correctly on any published work, (written stories or
CB>etc. taken home or hung on the wall at school).
Exactly, and this MAY be done in some classrooms (Dan's for 
example)... In how many OTHER classrooms are teachers simply
taking the text Dan references at face value and not using
spelling lists or even ATTEMPTING to promote proper 
spelling?
___
 * MR/2 2.26 * My best view of Windows was through OS/2 WARP.
--- Silver Xpress Mail System 5.3M1f
 -=> Quoting Dan Triplett to Carl Bogardus <=-
 DT> Thought this was rather funny and thought I'd share.
 
 kakl, kakl, kakl, (aussie expression for laugh spelt yor weigh)
 Only one problem, Dan, it was done in 1984, wasn't it? (George Orwell)
 DT> Having chosen English as the preferred language in the EEC (now 
 DT> officially the European Union, or EU), the European Parliament has 
 DT> commissioned a feasibility study in ways of improving efficiency in 
 DT> communications between Government departments.
 DT> European officials have often pointed out that English spelling is
 DT> unnecessarily difficult.  For example: cough, plough, here, hear, bow,
 DT> bough, through and thorough.  What is clearly needed is a phased
 DT> program  of changes to iron out these anomalies.  The program would be 
 DT> administered by a committee of top level staff chosen by the 
 DT> participating nations.
 DT> In the first year, for example, the committee might suggest using "s" 
 DT> instead of the soft "c".  Sertainly, sivil servants in all sities
 DT> would  resieve this news with joy.  The hard "c" could then be replased
 DT> by "k"  sinse both letters are pronounsed alike.  This would not only
 DT> klear up  konfusion in the minds of klerikal workers, but typewriters
 DT> and  keyboards kould be made with one less letter, a signifikant
 DT> savings. 
 DT> In the sekond year, bekause of growing enthusiasm, it will be
 DT> announsed  that the troublesome "ph" would henseforth be written "f". 
 DT> This would  make words like "fotograf" twenty persent shorter in print.
 DT> In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be
 DT> expekted  to reash the stage where more komplikated shanges are
 DT> possible.  Governments would enkourage the removal of double letters
 DT> which have  always ben a deterent to akurate speling.
 DT> We would al agre that the horible mes of silent "e"'s in the languag
 DT> is disgrasful.  Therefor, we kould drop thes and kontinu to read and
 DT> writ  as though nothing had hapend.
 DT> By this tim it would be four years sins the skem began and peopl would
 DT> be reseptiv to steps sush as replasing "th" by "z".  Perhaps zen ze 
 DT> funktion of "w" kould be taken on by "v", vitsh is, after al, half a 
 DT> "w". Finaly, ze unesesary "o" kuld be dropd from words kontaining
 DT> "ou".  Similar arguments vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of
 DT> leters. 
 DT> Kontinuing zis proses yer aftr yer, ve vud eventuli hav a reli sensibl
 DT> iten stil.  Aftr tventi yers zer vud be no mor trubls or difikultis
 DT> and  evrion vud fin it ezi tu understan esh ozer.  Ze drems of ze E.U.
 DT> vud  finali kum tru.
 DT> :)  It kan hapen.....Dan
 DT> -!- WILDMAIL!/WC v4.12 
 DT>  ! Origin: R-Squared BBS  (1:352/28.0)
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