Dan,
I know this is really, really old, but I've been busy herding Togolese
children.  I feel like I can barely speak English these days, let alone
write it.
I had kind of hoped the spelling monster thing would die, but since I
see that it still hasn't & that you didn't get my point, I thought I'd
just push it back at you.
LP>>For what it's worth in regard to the invented spelling issue...I seem
LP>>to remember being told in some university pedagogy class that it
LP>>takes an average of only two to three repetitions to learn something,
LP>>but it takes an average of 27-30 reps to UNlearn something
LP>>incorrectly learned.
LP>>As a student, I was never corrected on certain words & STILL have
LP>>problems remembering how to spell responsi/responsability.  I KNOW
LP>>it's responsi, but I WANT to spell it responsa, because that's the
LP>>way I **always** did it & I never got it marked wrong.  Oh, well.
 DT> Great Leona...but approximated spellings are not learned spellings and
 DT> do NOT have to be unlearned.  Most people misunderstand this point and
 DT> many seem to ignore it altogether.
No, Dan, I wasn't ignoring it.  I DO think that approximated spellings
can be learned & retained in the student's memory as being correct,
hence the example of my own experience.
I was making the point that if a correction isn't made at SOME period in
a student's life, the student could end up in a situation similar to
that in which one of my 8th graders found himself last year: he named
his grafitti tagging team the SSK (Siko Skatin' Krew.)  No one ever
bothered telling him that "psycho" starts with a silent p.  Needless to
say, my 7th period class reamed him publicly which, altho' he denied
it, embarrassed him when it was pointed out by the students that he was
emblazoning his spelling error on walls around downtown.  I won't even
address the k for krew.
Me, I just type responsability a couple of times a year & echo it
internationally.  Nothing big.
I'm sure you'll feel impelled to reply since this seems to be a crusade
for you, but I'm bored now. ;^)  I'm wondering how to get my Togolese
girls to learn to spell this ridiculous language.
... "The `H' stands for horrible, right?" -- Lister's Confidence
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