When I was in MO, Addie followed me around wanting to know how to spell every word she could think of. For a lot of the words, like “Barbie”, she would go find something that had the word on it, then copy the word. But, for those words she couldn’t find easily already written, she’d ask me how to spell it. Sandwich, sushi, Speck, wedding . . whatever crossed her mind.
We went to the store one day after school to get some popcorn. We looked at all the types that were available and together, we decided on Orville Redenbacher’s Movie Time Popcorn.
Popcorn
Addie grabbed her little pad and, in her wobbly kindergarten writing, wrote “Orville”. She said “Look, Granny! I wrote “Movie Time.” I looked at it and said “Your writing is very good but you wrote “Orville”. She was determined that she had written Movie Time.
I figured it didn’t really matter. She is not going to continue through life thinking “Orville” spells “Movie Time” so I let it go . . moved on to the next word she wanted to write.
Dot says
Reminds me of the time my niece started school. The first thing they learned to write was their own first name. The teacher told my sister that Laura had a serious problem: she wrote her name upside down and backwards! My sister, a teacher herself, knew that Laura had been writing her name perfectly at home for months. It turned out that the teacher had given each student a card with their name on it, to copy. And she’d set Laura’s card in front of her, turned so the name was upside down. Laura made a perfect copy of what she’d been given.
Deb A. says
Our kiddos are so great. Our eldest , now 56, had a favorite book. She was around 3 or 4 when one night she wanted to read to us. She “read” it aloud perfectly, turned pages at the right time. Needless to say we were flabbergasted. Little stinker finally admitted that she had it memorized. She is still an avid reader.
dezertsuz says
That’s the beginning of reading! =) The sense of story, the intonation, the pauses, the understanding of story format and then come the words, one by one. That was a great thing! (Former primary teacher here)
dezertsuz says
Writing is how about 2/3 of children learn to read. Encouraging her to sound out words is a great technique for helping reading. “Invented” spelling is fine. It’s the start! Addie is developing a good habit and you were right not to make a big deal of Orville and Movie time not being the same. =)
cindy says
I don’t know about her school, but the kindergarten the now 11 year old and the different one the current kindergartener attend(ed) do something called “write the room” where they go around and copy down words they see in the classroom. She may be doing something like that at school and enjoying it so wants to continue at home. as for the Orville and Movie Time, does she know letters and sounds yet? if so you could point out the differences in the first letters and sounds of the two words to help her understand. It is so fun to watch them be so excited about learning.