Ever since I started giving tuition at 12years old, I had tried to use different methods to teach my students spelling. Different methods work for different students.
Now for the very first time, Keatkeat is introduced to spelling. Yes, you heard me right, he NEVER HAD SPELLING during his Kindergarten Days. So since its my son, I tried out All the methods I had ever used on my students, except the ‘singing‘ method, to see which works best for him.
First experience giving him Spelling was nothing short of a Sky Diving thrill ride. Too bad, I did not witness the safe landing. I had an appointment that evening. It was free fall without parachute before I left the house. And I left it to Allan to catch Keatkeat from the air.
This was what happened…..
15th Jan, Friday: I checked Keatkeat’s bag and found a loose sheet of paper. I saw the words ‘SPELLING ON 18TH JAN’. I almost fainted.
Because I know my boy’s learning ability, to give him only one day (16th Sat) to learn 10 words, and knowing he had NEVER had spelling in school before, he would be banging his head on the wall without a helmet!
I asked, “Keatkeat, when did you receive this spelling paper?”
Keatkeat: “Many days already.”
*FAINT* “Why didn’t you tell me?!”
He gave me the ‘How-would-I-know-you’d-be-THAT-Interested-in-this-paper?’ kind of look.
TRUE. He knew nothing about the expectation of the school when it comes to spelling. The only time he learned to spell words was when he tried to figure out what in the world is that pop-up box saying in his Facebook games.
I panicked. It was already late and he had tomorrow only (16th Saturday) to learn, because we are off to my in-laws house every Sunday. There is no way he can concentrate when his cousins are laughing and playing away.
Imagine:
- First Time learning spelling.
- 10 words for a first timer.
- Only 1 day to learn.
- And he had HOMEWORKS too!
*AAaaarrrrgggghhhhhh* I was prepared that he may fail his very first spelling.
16th Jan, Saturday Morning: Woke him up. Completed his homework pretty fast. Gave him a short break and spelling training began.
5 HOURS!!! And he still could not get them right. I wanted to stop many times in between. He wanted to stop and go play too. Then he contradicted himself. Being a perfectionist Scorpio, he wanted to get it all correct, yet he knew he could not take it anymore.
In between, I gave toilet breaks. Water breaks. Apple breaks. He wanted longer breaks, then we both fear that he might forget the words which he knows. He hates to see Crosses on his paper.
I was in a dilemma, and so was he. My dilemma was whether to support his in-born perfectionist nature or to satisfy his desire to play.
Time was running out and he started to show signs of stress:
- His letter ‘d’ became a fishball in the middle of a tooth pick, neither looking like an ‘a’ or a ‘d’.
- He started to write mirror image of the letter ’s’.
- His letter ‘r’ became letter ‘n’.
- He mixed words up ~ ‘chickens’ became ‘chicks’.
- The worst part came when he held his pencil and stared blankly at the sheet of paper.
I had to keep scolding “What are you waiting for?!”
Then he looked at me and stared blankly into my face too.
I said, “Spell ‘animals’. Why are you looking at me? Write ‘animals’.”
He replied softy, “I forgot.”
I said, “Let’s stop!”
He got all frantic suddenly, two hands slapped his book down and said, “No no no! I want to spell. I want to spell.”
He was obviously too stress. I was scolding him for his little writing errors listed above 99% of the time and NOT that he cannot remember the words.
His contradicting behaviour was driving me CRAZY!!!!
5 HOURS!!! On Spelling!!! Insane!!! I had to go and meet my friends for a birthday celebration. I need a break. Handed the 6 year old over to his Papa who just came home, all tired and sweaty .
Few hours later, while I was enjoying my dinner, I received Allan’s sms:
*Huge Laugh*
So for him, many mini-breaks can never beat an hour of dinner cum play break! *laugh*
When I reached home, Keatkeat happily told me that he knew all the words and he ‘ordered‘ me to test him. And so I did.
Without hesitation on any word, he got it all correct and FINALLY got what he had been waiting for…… my starry-pictures.
He chooses what I should ‘draw’ using stars. So for that very first one, it was Christmas Tree.
Now, at home, his source of motivation is getting the starry pictures from me. In school, his source of motivation is the stickers from the teacher.
Anyhow, that was the first and DEFINITELY the last time he is going to get so stressed up over spelling.
Now that we know how does the spelling sheet looks like and that it is usually given on Tuesday, we have decided to give him only 2 words per day.
We tried it last week. The result was AWESOME!!!! He enjoyed it and so did we! That is my boy’s threshold.
He is comfortable with 2 words per day. But it is extremely tiring for us. That is why I had been saying ‘There is Spelling Everyday!!!’ *laugh*
Slowly, but surely, we will level up that threshold. This week we will be trying 3 words per day. *wink*
But if you think his first encounter with English Spelling was drama, wait till you read my post on his Chinese Spelling. *laugh*
Till then,
the tired Mommy signing off now…..
Yippee! So much better. Then I saw Chinese words. And Keatkeat was unhappy that he could not write the Chinese Characters correctly. (Teacher circled no. 10 “didi”) 
So now, Keatkeat is working hard for his Ting Xie because English Spelling has become a breeze for him! Whoo-hoo! *wink*
Keatkeat came home and told me that he should be leaving his Maths Workbook at home for good! He continued to shock me by saying that I should be assigning him the number of pages to do in that workbook at the pace which I like. I will correct his mistakes and grade him by my standard.
First week of school, Binbin 
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