Spelling Foibles

This week's spelling words included the word "assign." A few of my kids in all of their creative glory wrote "assing". After I saw it on about five tests, I wrote "assing" on the board. I give spelling pretests on Thursdays, so I was hoping to avoid seeing this on Friday's test.

I pointed to "assing" on the board, written in bright red and asked my class, "What does this say?" I heard more than a few giggles as one of them timidly raised their hand and quietly said, "Assing?" "Yup, that's right." I responded. "And, what is it supposed to be?" to wit my whole class loudly said, "Assign." I wrote "assign" on the board.

"That's also correct," continuing I said, "What word do I not want to see on tomorrow's spelling test?" They were getting into it this time and were less intimidated by saying a word that's bad in front of their teacher. "Assing!" They screeched.

So on Friday's test one of the words was accurate. As I said the word, then repeated it in a sentence, I said, "Ms_teacher's students are going to check to make sure their spelling is accurate. They are going to avoid writing assing instead of assign. Assign is one of their spelling words. Assing is not."

They giggled. I, of course, joined in. This is one of the many reasons why I enjoy 6th grade.