Spelling Words

Next week I will once again be the Spelling Mistress for grades 0ne through five. I have a list of words to go over before then. Some are words I have used most of my life. Others, on the other hand,are ones I have never heard of before. My husband has a much better vocabulary than I have. For many of the words, I just ask him , "What does this word mean?" He will then tell me and look it up just to be sure he is correct. There have been several words that even he didn't know. The second part of being a spelling caller-outer-of-words is to use the word in a sentence prior to having the child spell the word. This can be tricky when I'm unfamiliar with the word. Here are a few examples: gelid, moue, shallop, hawse,teetotum and jimjams. I didn't have a clue as to the meaning of these words. My husband knew one and for another he knew an older definition of the word. I have penciled in some sentences to use for the more difficult words and will remind the child to say the word, spell the word and then say the word again after it is spelled. The whole goal for these s-p-e-l-l-e-r-s is to just do their best. Some of the younger students get so worked up before and during a Bee that they will cry if they miss a word. I definitely don't want to see these little ones upset about missing a spelling word. There are a slew of brilliant people who can't spell. So, spelling is not a measure of intelligence. However, what spelling bees do do is give kids confidence in speaking before an audience. In addition to this, the bees help them to figure out the parts of the word and their meaning which aids in spelling the words. Finally, for the spellers and for me, our vocabulary is increased. Let's relax and spell with enthusiasm, kids! Hey, here's a little word history of enthusiasm -( theos, god.) "Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm," said the very quotable Ralph Waldo Emerson, who also said, "Everywhere the history of religion betrays a tendency to enthusiasm." These two uses of the word enthusiasm-one positive and one negative-both derive from its source in Greek. Enthusiasm first appeared in English in 1603 with the meaning "possession by a god." The source of the word is the Greek enthousiasmos, which ultimately comes from the adjective entheos, "having the god within," formed from en, "in, within," and theos, "god." Over time the meaning of enthusiasm became extended to "rapturous inspiration like that caused by a god" to "an overly confident or delusory belief that one is inspired by God," to "ill-regulated religious fervor, religious extremism," and eventually to the familiar sense "craze, excitement, strong liking for something." Hmmm, I wonder if you can spell "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious"? By the way, I wonder what it means?