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Spelling trauma

Rating: 4 votes, 5.00 average.
7 Comments
by
motherhubbard
, 10-09-2008 at 11:26 PM (2710 Views)
I grew up believing that I could not spell. I couldn’t, but I believed that it was beyond me. I was certain that I would never be able to spell. This was way back in the ‘olden’ days when there were no PCs and spell check didn’t even happen on the Enterprise. I never had a pen pal, I never wrote to friends, I made terrible grades, I would spend forever looking things up in the dictionary… It was always an issue. It was also hard on my self esteem. I took a remedial class and found myself so nervous about it that my spelling worsened. I started spelling mebay instead of maybe and things like that.

It is still a problem for me. Not spelling so much as the anxiety of it. My spelling has greatly improved with college and with use. But, I have the spell check to help me. If I didn’t I would spend hours and hours looking words up. I use the computer dictionary several times when I type anything as it is. When the kids have a spelling test I always have to check their practice test with the word list no matter how simple the words are. I second guess myself all the time.

I have this list of words that I always have to stop and think about and usually just look up with the computer dictionary to be safe. Quiet, Quite, Pen, Pin, Since, and Sense are looked up every time I type them with the exception of this time. I have these little things about each word that I use to remind myself, but I still worry. It’s one thing to get a really hard word wrong, but another to screw up pin.

One of my assignments this semester is to do a 30 hour practicum in the public school. Today was my first day and I observed in a first grade classroom. The teacher is such a nice lady and the daughter of one of my college English professors. She’s a very nice lady. A couple of the kids were really misbehaving and were to write sentences in the office during recess. She asked me to take them to the office, write “I will be quiet in class.” on the top of a paper, copy the paper, and have the boys write that sentence over and over during recess.

I choked! I got so freaked out over quiet and I felt so much pressure that I couldn’t slow myself down to think and just froze. I’m so embarrassed. She asked what was wrong and I had to ask about the spelling. I’m mortified.
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  1. kiz_paws's Avatar
    Don't be mortified -- the teacher would probably think that you felt on the spot and nervous. Nothing to be ashamed of. Honest!
    I had spelled definitely as definately for years and years and years until ....
    SleepyWitch (our one and only ) made a comment somewhere about how this word is almost always misspelled (or something about it anyhow) -- and it suddenly dawned on me that I was guilty of this word crime! **SHOCK**
    So relax and be yourself -- you have way too many good things going on about yourself to let spelling get you down!
  2. sprinks's Avatar
    I'm always second guessing myself too, but it seems worse with you . I agree with kizzo . Anywho, being a teenager in such a technological world means that, thanks to the likes of msn and text messages, almost no one I know spells things right. It doesn't help! I tend to pick up on other peoples spelling and grammar, but my own mistakes tend to evade me. I'm always checking the most simple words in the dictionary. I used to have a friend who was also not a great speller - she'd spell "log" as "loge" and things like that. I hope you get more confidence in your ability to spell things soon
  3. pussnboots's Avatar
    don't worry about it. I find myself at times reciting, "I" before "E" except after "C".
  4. Nightshade's Avatar
    DOnt freak about it motherhubbard I spent increadibly large periods of my childhood being screamed at for being too stupid /lazy/ or just plain deiberatly trying to wind teachers up for not being even able to copy the word 2 out 300 times correctly even if it was written at the top of the page, turns out Im dyslexic , go figure yeah? While I will say improvment isnt beyond my means I will never be able to spell as well as my 10 year old sister for instance. I Have the odd kind of dysleixa that dosent affect my reading really ( except for proper nouns like names, which I really strugle with ) but affects my rwriting ability to such an extcnt I often have to have my name double checked on official documents because I cant always spell that. ANd usualy easier words that are the hardest like does and dose not sure which is which, 2 and several others of the type.
    But my point was there a 'coping mechanisims' which I meant to blog about years ago but never got round to doing properly, so here is my nifty key to dealing with the panic,

    1) Breathe probably the most importnat step if you start freaking out all tghe spelling goes out the window
    2) Its all in the phonetics , with a lot of words - barring nouns which are just stupid- if you break the word down to sylabols then again into phonetical sonds you can get a fairly readable guesstamate. for instance youyr example ( which is actually one of the annoying words) quiet is quii--Et rather than quii-T, or qui-t sounding so thats how you know there is a e there.
    and some words just have pretty shapes, for example the aunt that taught me to tell the difference between bear nd bare drew the e and the a in bear as eyes so I always rembered that 2 together 2 eyes so its alive.

    3) the most important of them all , dont feel bad about asking everyone need s help withsomthing spelling ability and handwriting are in no way indicatorsd of intelligence some of the smartest people in the world ( like einstein, edison, davinci -probably noone is too sure what he was- , agathat Christie) were dyslexic and therefore it fllows unable to spell.

    I, before e except after c got me in trouble because I kept spelling their thier, so noww I sawe ibefore e exccept after c unless its their..
  5. applepie's Avatar
    Don't stress too bad. I do the same type of thing. I've always been terrible at spelling. Still am if you want the truth. I rely entirely too much on spell check to keep errors out. The one thing I have found that helps is writing. The more I write, the more I see my common errors. I just sort of commit them to memory and it is a constant learning process. Reading a lot helps too, so I think you're on the right track. You'll do fine, so smile that you made it through your first day. Much Love, Meg
  6. Virgil's Avatar
    You didn't do a Dan Quayle? I'm sorry for laughing. Well, as many can tell from my posts I can't spell to save my life. So I have the same problem. In grade school I was a terrible speller and perhaps slightly improved by high school. I did get better in college because I was writing school papers and they didn't have spell check in my day. But after college they came up with spell check and my spelling has again degraded. It's too easy to let the computer do it for you. I too felt insecure over it, and there have been a number of people on the forums who have commented I sound like an idiot sometimes. Bah, I don't care. What made me at ease with it was when I found out that William Butler Yeats was one of the worst spellers in history. His manuscripts are supposed to be filled with mispelings, even common words. He just had a problem. Who cares. Put yourself at ease and do the best you can.
  7. motherhubbard's Avatar
    I had a police supervisor that insisted that I had dyslexia. I do transpose a lot when I write, but I read just fine. I have a dyslexic uncle who is an intelligent man, but he had the most difficult time reading. It’s painful to watch, really. I have done the Dan Quail thing and I sound just like George Bush when I talk. You know how he just butchers words sometimes? That is so me. It really makes step 2 in your coping skills hard. I do have less of an accent than many around, but it’s still bad. The way that Bush talks has really done a lot for my self-esteem.