Spelling Bee

Rose was in the school spelling bee, again. She has made the school finals a number of her elementary school years. And as proud as I am of her, there's a tiny part of me that goes, "Really? Rosie? Are you sure?"

Don't get me wrong, I know she's a bright little girl. But she really doesn't like to read. I think it's because most books cannot compete with her imagination. They're too boring compared to what is going on in Rosie World. I'm a good speller and so is Sabrina, but we read a lot. I just always kind of assumed that good spellers come from good readers, people who see lots of different kinds of words. But while I am good at spelling, I am apparently not so good at learning/education theories.

Because Rose is a great speller. Her first spelling bee was in kindergarten. Who does spelling bees in kindergarten? The whacko school I had enrolled my child in apparently. I'd put her in an all-day kindergarten to occupy her mind. She didn't like her preschool anymore, cried if I made her go. So I had decided to keep her home. Preschool or lack thereof wouldn't hurt her. But I quickly learned that I couldn't keep up with the girl.

She was constantly asking me to do things and create things to go along with the stories in her mind. I would just look at her and go, "Say what? I can't do that!" And she'd sigh and go figure it out on her own. Once she said, "Mom, can you please make me a roller coaster for my stuffed animals?" I said, "No, of course not, sweetie. How in the world would I do that?" (You can just see the creative juices flowing through me, can't you?)

She heaved her little you're-such-a-disappointment-to-me sigh and disappeared for a few hours. Later on, she came by where I was working and said, "Mom, come see my roller coaster." And darned if she hadn't gone and built one in our dining room out of paper, cardboard, and tape. What do you do with a kid like that? I decided to put her in an all-day kindergarten to get her out of my hair, er, to stimulate her little brain.

A couple months later her kindergarten teacher pulled me aside and said, "Mrs. George, Rose won the spelling bee and is going on to regionals!" I said, "Huh?" She gave one of those sighs I've come to be so familiar with and repeated, "Rose won the spelling bee. She's moving on to the regionals." I said, "But she doesn't even read yet. How can she have won the spelling bee?" The poor teacher looked at me in disbelief and said, "Of course she can read. She reads quite well."

That little stinker. I'd read with her, encouraged her with the sounding out of words, tried to get her to read books about Biscuit the dog to me. I was so anxious to introduce her into the wonderful world of books, but she just wouldn't do it. I had assumed it was because she wasn't ready yet. Oh, she was ready to read all right, just not to me.

I went home and told David. "Rose won the spelling bee today. She's going to regionals." I was gratified to see that his reaction was the same as mine. And that was the start of an illustrious spelling career. Today in the finals she spelled urgent, fertilize, psychoanalysis, and photosynthesis. She bit the dust on lobbyist and then migraine. Not bad for a little girl who really doesn't like to read.