Obsessed With Spelling

Ryan is totally obsessed with spelling. It is not unusual for him to spend 1-2 hours at a time making words with his magnetic letter train. He starts with a word and then goes through the alphabet and sees what new words he can make. The excitement just runs through him when he finds new words and builds on old ones. He has a list of probably 50 + words that he can spell. Some are the easy first words stuff and some more complicated just because he is always asking questions how to spell things and he seems to remember it all.

The other day it was adding ground to camp to make campground. He had a little help as he insisted on spelling ground with an "ow" instead of an "ou". He said, "Mom, OW makes the ow sound like cow, how, and now. It has to be "ow" not "ou", see listen.... gr ow nd." So after I convinced him it was "ou", then he moved onto playground, wet ground, damp ground and on and on putting ground with words he already knew how to spell. It is amazing the way his mind works with letters.

Well, sometimes that mind gets us into a little trouble by finding words that let's say are a little inappropriate. We've already hit some of the biggies, but today was a new find. I was walking down the hall and Ryan says "Hey Mom, I can't find porn." Of course shocked that my 5 year old said the word porn, my little ears perked up and I asked him to repeat the question as I was certain I had heard him incorrectly. He repeated, and nope, I hadn't heard him wrong, he did indeed say porn. How did we get to porn out of an innocent little spelling game? Well, he started with corn and then started running through the alphabet and found born, torn, worn, etc. So when he got to the letter "P", naturally he wondered about if that was a word. So what he meant by he couldn't find porn is that he couldn't find that "P" letter train in his bin that made the word porn. I carefully explained to him that is not a word that we use to which he replied, "But why, isn't it a word?" I told him it was an adult word and that even most adults don't talk about that word, so it was best he not use it again. He seemed satisfied with that answer and thank goodness he didn't ask me what the word meant, which frankly is a miracle as he always wants to know what everything means and wants to use it in a sentence.

So, Judy, in case you are reading this, if the class is spelling the word corn and Ryan asks about, well, you know, he DID NOT hear that word used in a sentence at this house!