Spelling

[Borlotti]

I had trouble at school spelling.  Hear the sounds, what sounds, look it up in a dictionary.  How, when you can't spell it.  I also had trouble with shorthand, and hearing the beat of music.  I still dance to a different beat from everyone else and they laught at me (but do I care).  I was called to the school for my son who was reversing his 'a' and 'e' they thought he may be German, maybe because my daughter (his sister. obviously), who is a brilliant spellor (speller) is called Greta.  I had to learn to spell through reading and if I have a word I do not know cannot do it by sound.  In those days they had not heard of dyslexic or whatever.  I took my 11 plus but knew the answers but couldn't spell them so had to not use long words but think of an alternative answer, I must admit I still do that today.  My father was very clever but not a good speller, my mother was and good at dancing and shorthand, although as a joke we called her 'bird of very little brain'.  She was no help with my physics or maths homework but Dad was, also he was brilliant at chess, but Mum couldn't work out the moves.  I just thinks everyones brain (or is it brian) works in a different way.  Would be interested to know if anyone else had problems with spelling.  The programme on TV about people who couldn't read or write, although having gone through the school system was very interesting.

[Borlotti]

[manicscousers]

Ray's dad was put in a corner with a dunce's hat on..they thought he was lazy..they'd never heard of dyslexia..he can work out words now as he does puzzles  ;D
Ray had it but not as bad as his dad, he finds small words, their, there, where, were won't stick in his mind, he's quite good at longer words
our children, well the second and third, have word blindness, a diluted form, made them slow to read, learn languages but they're fine now, they have spell check..I'm hoping it's worn off for my grandkids  ;D

[theothermarg]

Yes I do know what you mean I can remember the then child guidance telling mum that I was "slow" and would never be able to read and write! I started reading when I was 8 but mirror wrote (being a lefty didn,t help) but I got by
not done much in my life but managed to produce3 bright kids and made a living making and selling ceramic models for 16 years
still have trouble with math and spelling I have a little thing called a spellmaster which I put in how I think something is spelt and it gives me a list of what it thinks I mean :D feel so chuffed when I get it right
To be honest numbers frighten me I look at the adverts for adult learning on TV
and think how can they teach someone who,s brain just scrambles numbers up
mmm funny I always know when my change is wrong
marg

[Borlotti]

I remember playing 'I spy' with my son, he always won.  He would say I spy with my little eye something beginning with 'N' and it would be a knife, or whatever.  We always let him win as he was only little.  S for ceiling we could guess but c for dog as they are both animals was more difficult. But he now earns more money than me and still can't spell.

[Jeannine]

My John is  excellent at most things, rarely reads a book other than a text book, absorbs the info like blotting paper( well he did before he got ill) but his spelling has been the joke of the family for years, not nice I know but some are so funny.

I on the other hand am an excellent speller...but I can't type so I make sooo many mistakes unless I hand write.

XX Jeannine

[Paulines7]

I used to be a good speller but these days I sometimes get words that throw me and have to look them up.  It doesn't help that spell-checkers on forums underline them because I have not used the American spelling. 

I have ways of remembering the correct spelling for some words, for example, "definitely" I remember because it has "finite" in the middle.  It is the same with "separate" which has "a rat" inside.  "Grammar" I think of "Grandma" so know it has an "a" instead of an "e" as its penultimate letter.

Does anyone else have any quirky ways of remembering how a word is spelt? 
(Now once again the spell-checker has interfered and underlined the word "spelt" yet I looked up the word in the Oxford on-line dictionary and it is perfectly acceptable.)

[Borlotti]

I think stationery is 'envelopes' so e. and stationary is not moving, will have to look that one up.  And obviously i before e if not after c.  I wonder if children are taught these at school, they do stick with you all your life.  Junior scrabble is good but all they want to do is play computer games, but crosswords and word search help with spelling.  But I really hate that maths game, can't understand it at all , Sudoko, or whatever.

[scoobysnax]

Hiya,
        I went to Montessori (type of pre school but not posh  ;) ) in the early 70's where I learnt to read, write and do simple arithmetic. The only memories I've got of there is the bus journey with the twirly light outside the barber shop on the way there, which I think my mum used to use as a method to get me there. The other would be the milk served in polka dot beakers at break times and opening a brown envelope with a couple of bourbon biscuits in, off me ("my"...i know but am scouse an it's difficult typin in proper English!) mum. Anyway, by the time I'd got to infant school I could read and write very well but we were all started on some reading program that I think was called ITA (Initial Teaching Alphabet) which used phonetics and joined up letters in some cases I think. So it was a new language to me! I know me mum went mad but they didn't budge and that was the way I was taught for the next year or two only to revert to normal reading and writing later on. I didn't know if I was coming or going!!!

The problem I have now is....on mesage boards and stuff I like to type Scouse, like I would say it in real life, but then people think "I'm" (that hurts I prefer "am") dyslexic. Then there's text chat on the mobile which is a whole new language again especially Scouse textin! An then there's documentation for work or writing assignments. Sooooooooo sometimes it feels like I'm back to my first few months of infant school where I don't know if I'm coming or going.... or OMG I feel like am back in me infant skool an i dunno if am comin or goin!

              Scoobs

[carrot-cruncher]

Both my Dad & nephew have trouble reading & writing but both are brilliant at manual tasks.   Give Dad a pile of wood with some nails and plastic sheeting & you'll get a lovely greenhouse that'll last for ever.   Nephew does similiar stuff with K'nex.   He'll have a quick look at the pictures in the instruction book then go off and build something radically different.   He thought it highly funny when his auntie nearly took off out of her chair when a two foot spider walked into the lounge from the hall (until I realised it was K'nex).

On the more amusing side, a work mate is severely dyslexic & relied on the spell checker to update notes on incidents.   This approach worked very well until one day the computer replaced "excavation team" with "execution team" so it sounded like we were going to shoot the engineers for not working fast enough.

CC

[Rhubarb Thrasher]

Someone used to do some work for me. His company was called Pleiades something or other. I could never remember how to spell it properly (i've just looked it up now). One day this bloke said he was dyslexic, and I said -if you're dyslexic then why did you call your company Pleiades when it's so difficul to spell? he said - so the rest of you ******* would know what it's like  ;D