“The spelling trees helped us see the patterns and
keep track of the spellings. They helped us see which
spellings are used a lot and which ones are used less.
There were a lot of good spellers in Miss Baker’s
class .”
“But not all of them went on to win the state
spelling bee,” I said. “Why did you?”
Gail shrugged.
“I was good at spelling. But I did not understand
why English spelling was so hard. Once I asked Miss
Baker why it was so hard. ‘Miss Baker,’ I said, ‘why
are there five or six spellings for some sounds? That
makes no sense. Why isn’t there just one spelling for
a sound?’”
Miss Baker explained as much as she could. Then
she gave me a book on spelling. It was a cool book. It
explained how English has taken in lots of spellings
from French, Latin, Greek, and Spanish. When I
finished that book, Miss Baker gave me a longer
book. Then I found the next book by myself. One
book sort of led to the next. So that’s how I got
started .”