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March 04, 2006
To Spell or Not to Spell
"I'm late, I'm late for a very important date." Well, I'm going to be late if I can't find the phone number for the person I'm supposed to meet. I had talked to this gentleman earlier in the week about some information I needed for a project. We'd agreed to meet Thursday afternoon or Friday morning. It depended on what time my workshop got through on Thursday, and I would call and let him know what time I'd be through. No problem. I put the possibiles in my calendar thinking at the time, I should put his phone number too, but it's on my yellow tablet and I'll have it with me so no problem.
Thursday afternoon and I'm going to run late. I need to call and confirm Friday morning. Of course, his phone number is on my yellow tablet, but not the one I have with me. It's on the other one. The one sitting on my desk, out in my car, or who knows where. I call my office, they locate his phone number in the phone book, call him, and reschedule for the next morning.
Friday morning I look in my calendar, but I have no location to meet him. I also don't have his number or my yellow tablet. So, like most smart people, I look it up in the phone book. I can't find it. There are Toms and Bobs and Bills, but not anyone I'm looking for. I can't find it anywhere, but my secretary had said she'd found it in the phone book. I have an old one and they moved. Maybe they're not in this one.
So I call the office. My secretary isn't in. Our receptionist says she'll look it up. I spell the name. She looks in her new phone book, not there. She checks my secreatary's rolodex, not there. I'm beginning to get concerned. I need to contact this person or I'll be late. I call a couple people who know him. Maybe they have his number. They aren't in. Time is getting close, and I'm going to look like a flake.
I finally find someone who has the number just as my office calls to tell me they found it. It seems I had been spelling the last name wrong for the last two days. It was in the phone book right where it was supposed to be. It was in the rolodex. It was on my yellow tablet which I found within ten minutes of getting the number. I called, made the appointment, and appeared calm and collected.
In the meantime, I'm realizing the value of spelling correctly. I had misspelled the name and wasted a great deal of my time as well as several other people's time in the process.
We often take spelling lightly. I don't know how many kids and adults I've heard say, "I don't spell very well, but who cares." Or my son's favorite, "The spell checker will take care of it."
I love a spell check, but it doesn't pick up things like: I when up the stares to the attack.
Spelling counts. We spend a great deal of time teaching children to read and write. Spelling may seem like a bit of an after thought. Sometimes those weekly spelling lists seem like such a boring thing to do, but over time they pay off. Kids who can spell become adults who can write, spell, and make themselves clearly understood.
Activity: Write your kids notes, correctly spelled of course. Have them write back to you. Find out what words they misspell. Play games to practice spelling them or add one of their own words to the weekly spelling list. Make it a bonus word and if they get it right for you, it's a special treat for them.
Posted by Dr Joni at March 4, 2006 09:22 AM