LIFE Academy

02/14/2025

Part of Speech

10/02/2023

Why are we deporting a family and their children including children born in America who have done everything according to the law, but not people who come illegally? Please share this and sign the petition of support.

The Romeike family has spent the last 15 years living in America, seeking asylum after facing persecution in Germany for homeschooling their children. But re...

11/23/2022

11/12/2022

03/05/2022

My first steps in teaching grammar were exasperating. We know that a noun is a person, place, or thing. So I explained to my daughter that an apple is a noun. Which set us both up for frustration when she tried to parse a sentence that included an apple tree.

I should have followed Miss Mason’s advice from Home Education: “Because English ... deals with sentences and the positions that words occupy in them, rather than with words, and what they are in their own right, it is better that the child should begin with the sentence, and not with the parts of speech.” After all, even the word “the” can be a noun. (As it was in the preceding sentence.)

I have come to see that the same is true of spelling. We don’t really spell words. We spell sentences. Knowing whether to use brake or break, by or buy, very or vary, there or their, and wear or where all depend on an intuitive awareness of the context. A good speller doesn’t have to think of the definition of the word. Rather, he can “feel” from experience which spelling suits the situation.

How does one develop that intuitive sense? That ability to spell a sentence and not just a word? I can think of no better method than dictation. With dictation, spelling is always in the context of meaning. The student builds an awareness not just of the pattern of letters, but also of the pattern of words.

Dictation is not my son’s favorite subject. But the selections are always interesting and often spark enjoyable discussions. And we both know that spelling is important. He takes the task seriously, knowing that I’m on his side to help him to develop this valuable skill.

I mentioned to him the other day that some people teach spelling other than by dictation. He gave me a puzzled look. “How would they do that?” When I understand that we spell sentences and not words, I ask the same question myself.

03/01/2022