Mistackes

A hero-story

is still a hero-story 

with the words spelled wrong. 

Yesterday, a  kindergartner showed me the book he had written for his teacher. He had illustrated it, narrated it, titled it, and even taped a new piece of paper over a mistake to correct what he had written without having to re-do the drawing. He had put some work into this thing, and he was proud. 

The story was about a crystal that was on an orb. The orb was in a castle attached to the White House, and some hero was trying to retrieve it. This crystal was "ancient," like it was probably around "before my grandmother's grandmother." 

The only problem was that I only could read the story through translation, because crystal was spelled something like, "chrills" and castle was something like, "kassel." But once I had heard the story, I was was damned impressed. Even if this kid couldn't spell, he was still talking about orbs and using the word ancient. And, like I said, he had put a lot of time, effort, and CREATIVITY into this story. 

So, did it matter that he couldn't spell? I would say no. He had still come up with a pretty cool story. He was putting a lot of effort into a project, just for fun. And he had expressed himself creatively. If I, or some other menacing adult had turned the project into a spelling lesson, would he have still be proud enough to show it off? I would say no. Just let him write and draw and create. The more he does this, the better at it he will become. Most likely, spelling will come along with the rest of it. But if we scare him away from writing with spelling lessons, then what good will the spelling do him anyway?