Good spellers don’t guess at how to spell a word. Badd spelers guess all the time. Good spellers who don’t guess look up the word, use a spell-checker, or use a different word. If they are not sure, they don’t write it (unless they are time/test constrained).
As homeschool home educators, the reason we focus primarily on teaching our kids to ‘not guess’ AND to learn by rote the words they consistently misspell (made their own list and had them practice them) are five-fold:
1. Guessing is the problem
2. The common words they misspell, once learned, solve 90% of the issue for life.
3. Spelling is too fluid (changing) to have real ‘rules’…exceptions are the rule: counselor (U.S.) vs. counsellor (entire rest of the world). The second spelling follows the rule, the first follows our American bent to be more efficient/lazy (drop a letter).
4. Non-guessers will use spell checkers properly, look it up, and be grateful to those who correct them.
5. People who ‘just guess’ won’t learn the rules anyway except under threat/pain…then they won’t use them because ‘guessing’ is OK.
Off to learn,
Dr. Fred Ray Lybrand
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