Spelling explosion!

Sam's been bringing home "homework" since school started that always seems rather basic to me. Draw this letter, upper and lower case. It appears they've named the lines on the paper used for practicing though. In case you weren't aware of it they are now as follows:


_______ Sky line


- - - - - - - Plane line

_______ Grass line (I keep wanting to call it the dirt line)

________ Worm line (I don't remember an actual line here at all)

I discovered that keeping the letters in the right lines is more challenging for new writers than I'd expected after Sam wrote a whole line of lower case "a" between the sky and plane line. Oops.

They're doing letters that have things in common rather than in alphabetical order; for instance "r" and "n" and "m" (there is an "r" in every "n" and "m").

This method of learning his letters seems to make more sense than linear (a b c) way I'd been thinking about it.

They're also working on some simple words although I've found that it isn't any less irritating for him to spell "n-o" to something I've asked him to do than to just say it. But it is more gratifying when he spells "y-e-s."

He's sounding out the beginning and end of words, sometimes the middle as well. He spells things the way they sound and then he asks me if it's right and half the I find that I have to tell him that it should be right but unfortunately there is a silly silent "e" at the end or there is a "gh" in the middle for no apparent reason. When I explain that there are three different ways of spelling to/two/to he looks at me as though it's my fault.

But it's exciting to think that in a few months he might be reading some simple stories to me or himself!