Spelling Mom and Tucker style

Tucker isn't the best speller in the world. Each week, his homework includes five vocabulary words. During the course of the week, he has to write the definition of each word and what part of speech it is, use the word correctly in a sentence, fill out a chart with the word including synonyms, antonyms, and definitions, and then know how to spell the word. 

On Thursdays, I review all this with him to make sure he's ready for his test on Friday.  Tucker could care less about spelling things correctly because in Tucker logic, he spells words like they sound anyway, so who cares if he spells which w-i-c-h? Sounds the same anyway.

Thursday we were reviewing the vocabulary words for last week - eager, punctual, necessary, benefit, and the one I can't remember. 

Tucker was having trouble with all of the words besides eager and since he was already tired when we started the review, it didn't take him long to become frustrated.

Trying to help, I came up with word associations to make them easier to remember. (I should note for all of you who read this that are old enough to remember, I got this idea from an episode of the Facts of Life where the girls were studying for exams and Tootie suggested "A U, gimme back my gold!" for remembering the periodic table symbol for gold...au.)

Benefit.  Hey Tucker, you have a new gym teacher. Ben E. Fit. His knowledge will benefit you in gym class. 

Necessary. Since Tucker knows how to spell recess, I pointed out the necessary is recess, subbing the r for an n and adding ary. How to remember this? Recess is necessary. Just ask Ben E. Fit.

Punctual.  A play on words is a pun. P-u-n. c (see) t (my nickname for Tucker)? u (you) a l. You not a z, you a l.  It's not punny to make fun of punctual. Especially if u a l. 

It worked. He remembered how to spell the words the next morning. 

Goofy parenting win!