As I type, I’m being interrupted every minute or so to spell a word.
It started this morning when I set the breakfast table. “Who’s reading Howl’s Moving Castle?”
Howl’s Moving Castle
One at a time everyone denied reading it, until finally Kiddo 3 said, “Oh, I took it out. I needed to figure out how to spell CHAPTER.”
Kiddo3 is writing a book, and I think that was pretty resourceful of him. He told his teacher he wanted to be a professional writer, and when the teacher sent this to me in an email, I wrote back, “Please tell him that if there’s anything else that will make him happy, anything else in the world, he should do that instead.”
She laughed. I’m serious.
Anyhow, he’s sitting beside me trying to write an epic tale of love and loss, set in the world of Wizard 101. And because he can’t spell things like “Krokotopia,” I am being recruited to spell all of them for him.
He’s learning, though. He began by writing in sweeping epic style, “The Mander race started in Krokotopia,” and I suggested that for his second sentence, he should introduce a character. Because reading about the Kroks enslaving the Manders is a history lesson. But reading about a Mander boy named Boo whose father goes to give aid to the Kroks and then his father gets enslaved? That’s a story.
Kiddo3 said, “Oh! And then he goes on a quest to save his father!”
He’s got the idea.
I just hope he learns to spell a bit better. Or to be comfortable with misspellings. And soon.
Remember when they first learn that letters put together make words? “Mommy, what does this random combination of letters make?” (Usually when I’m in the middle of a tricky left turn.)