conuly

I so wish I could type in IPA!

And she doesn't spell tree as chree, she just tries to and gets frustrated. She hasn't worked out yet that ch is t and sh together - I can't wait for the day when she does!

I don't correct spelling or handwriting except in a few very specific instances.

1. If she's writing for her teacher, and I think her spelling is going to be totally unrecognizable, I carefully write the "grown-up spelling" in parentheses underneath it, emphasizing that she's not wrong, but that it's a tricky one to sound out.

2. In the case of b and d, I sometimes *will* point out the mistake, but only if it changes the meaning of the word and it isn't guessable from context. In this case, I "point it out" by asking if she's sure she did everything right. Then she usually catches it on her own, and if not, I let it drop. I sometimes ask her if she's sure she likes her work when it's fine, just to make sure she never thinks of the question as a trap to indicate that she got a wrong answer - I really just think she should be in the habit of looking over her work, whether it's right or not!

3. Occasionally, Ana will get into a weird mood. She'll make a mistake, correct it, and then keep erasing and correcting it over and over again. I step in and forceably stop her after a minute or so, usually putting the correct way down for her to copy. This is the crux of why I avoid doing any form of correction, because I don't want to encourage more pointless perfectionism. It really is a BIG ongoing problem with her. Many days end up with me banning the eraser altogether :(

Her teacher (quite correctly!) complained to me at the beginning of the year that some parents wanted more homework (they're insane, that's all I can say) and would correct their kid's errors. This annoyed her, and it's something that makes no sense to me. They're little. They don't need correction!

And a few other thoughts: Everything I've read says that mirror writing is very common at this age and usually straightens itself out. It makes sense - up until now, they've never, ever had to worry about direction before. Now they do. And as far as spelling words wrong goes, at this age I think (and judging by what her teacher says and has sent home, I think she agrees) that it's far more important to encourage the ability to sound things out rather than to worry about the correct spelling. That will come in time - the breaking words into sounds part is what needs to be worked on now, the rest is just icing.

So what would I say in those cases? Well, you know, I do try not to make TOO big a deal (try is the operative word!) over things, so if Ana were to write her name in mirror image (hard to do when you write it AnA, as she did for a while!) I'd probably say nothing at all, and if I did say something it would be along the lines of "I see, you wrote your name. Do you want to write anything else, or are you all done?" and nothing more. If she spells a word wrong, even if I'm writing a clarification, I don't make any comment on it at all. I figure the fact that I was able to read it is comment enough. If she's clearly itching for a compliment I'll say something like "You really thought hard about this" or "Your letters have gotten very neat lately, you've been practicing", but I do try to say it in a low-key kinda way.