In all I am, do, and will write, my aim is to hit God's mark. I will have moments of being misguided as I am not perfect, but know that I serve a God that loves me through it all.
I stunk at Spelling Bees. Being a visual learner, I am actually a pretty good speller. But Spelling Bees, no way. I have to SEE the word written down to prove to myself that I have spelled it correctly. It's not enough to 'see' it in my head. My daughter, however....
Beautiful is quite a reader, writer, and speller for a six year old. Because of this, I have not bothered to run any formal spelling program for her. I can recognize a natural speller when I see one.
I'm not saying that she never spells a word inaccurately, she simply doesn't need any extra instruction from me. All I ever have to do is just point out the omitted letter or the extra letter or the misplaced letter. She erases it and proceeds to write the word correctly right then, the next time she needs to use the word in her writings, and the next time, and then the next time and the next time...I'm not bragging or even implying that I have a genius, but she is definitely a natural born speller.
However, being the teacher that I am, I needed to assure myself that she was really grasping the "important" words. You know, those high frequency words. So I pulled out my book of HFW #1-400 and proceeded to quiz her on five or ten words per day...just to see...for my sake. (I am not going to provide a link to this book because I really don't recommend it; it is way too 'classroomy'.)
Anyway.
I think we were on word number thirty or so before she missed one. I was praising her all along the way. Showing her how amazed I was at her spelling abilities, I asked her how she manages to spell so well. She turned to me and stated very dramatically (those who know her personally can probably picture the expression on her face):
"Oh. When I close my eyes I see letters everywhere that just float into place." Drama Queen, you little stinker!
