Austin, Texas - WE HAVE another furor.
This one is about spelling. Apparently, the big thing in elementary schools around the country just now is something I have seen referred to as "invented spelling."
What this means is that rather than concentrating on how properly to spell words, the wee ones are being allowed to spell however the spirit may strike them.
A news story I saw out of Fort Worth, Texas, quoted the parent of a third-grader who would regularly bring home papers rife with misspellings but with no correcting marks. Said Dad, "Maybe brown would be spelled B-R-N. Cow may be spelled with a K, and it may have an OW on it, but then again there's no guarantee on that."
Critics of the method say that letting kids spell a word any way they want is simply saying that spelling isn't important and there's no reason to learn it.
Those who favor the notion say that invented spelling lets kids express their thoughts on paper without corralling their creativity. And, goes the argument, it encourages the tykes to expand their vocabularies because this way they can use words that they're nowhere near ready to spell.
In any event, until there is hard evidence that the new method is an improvement over the old one, I will continue to be a traditionalist. There are certain things that I believe, and at my age I am not going to change them. One is that the dimmer switch for your car's headlights should be on the floorboard and not on some appendage of the steering column. Another is that words should be spelled correctly. I do not wish to inhibit any little child's creative urges, but there is a big difference between "We have now approved your loan" and "We have not approved your loan," and kids may as well learn that early.
We all know that spelling is not our friend. Never has been. Can't imagine it ever being.
For one thing, it makes no sense. Think about having to teach a class of 25 kids all those words that begin with pt: ptarmigan, pterodactyl, ptomaine and, for that matter, Ptolemy. You'd have to have windshield wipers on your eyeglasses until you could explain that we don't pronounce the "p."
A friend of mine whose first name is Rowland used to tell people his name was spelled Ro3land. "The 3," he would say, "is silent." Makes as much sense.
Consider cupful. One "l." Well, might a non-English speaker ask why that is. Does it not mean a full cup, with two full "l's?" Yes. But.
Was it during the '80s that the perfectly respectable "center" became the trendy "centre" for commercial purposes? I have an opinion about anyone who puts the label "centre" on a business. I think he should be taken out behind the barn and squirted vigorously just below his centre of gravity.
Add to that all the Lites and Tastees and Krunchies that a kid sees on TV and in the stores and you wonder how anyone learns to spell.
So, this row is already hard enough to hoe, and somehow I don't think that invented spelling is going to make it any easier.
Mike Kelley writes for the Austin American-Statesman.