people who are good at grammar and spelling, have worked hard at it, probably have some natural ability with it and were usually blessed with parents who were able to reinforce these skills when their children were young. This usually excludes anyone who was born of parents who spoke English as a second language or anyone born in poverty whose parents struggled to put meals on the table and pay rent and had no time for spelling and grammar.

It always makes me nervous to intrude in parent-child interactions. So glad this advice seems to make sense to you!

That’s quite true 🙂 I’ll stop correcting her for a while and ask her first whether she needs help or not in spelling or in any other subjects… Maybe it’s me who has been too intrusive :D.
Thank you so much for the valuable advice 🙂

Yes, it’s always a good idea to give any piece a final review before submitting it. And if you’re not a natural speller, it’s a good idea to have someone ELSE do that review!

Excellent point, Liz. I’m sorry I didn’t mention it in the column. Having text with errors underlined (as MS Word does) is intensely distracting and hampers creativity. As you say, it’s better to pay attention to spelling and grammar checkers AFTER you’ve finished writing.

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I guess spelling IS about drawing with words. My son, who is dyslexic, has difficulty with is visual memory (which is why he cannot spell.)

I guess my first question is, does SHE want to improve her spelling? If not, I suggest you back off and let your daughter navigate her own way. Some people are naturally good at spelling; others have to work at it. I always fell into the latter camp and nothing anyone said could have convinced me it was important. (It took me 20 years as a writer to see the value in spelling.) If your daughter does want help, perhaps you could start with lists of the most common misspelled words and help her quiz herself on those. But motivation needs to come from INSIDE people. It cannot be applied by their parents!

No, thank YOU for passing along the great info!