Thursday, April 21, 2011

Write It Right!

A number of years ago I was looking for a teaching resource to help my students with a specific spelling problem: So many English words sound the same as other words that have different spelling and meaning... write and right (and also rite), sew, sow [seeds], and SO on!














My students found it very confusing. So I started a list of these problem words. What surprised me was how many of them there were!

At the same time, I kept looking for a comprehensive workbook that dealt with all these English homonyms. But I couldn't find one.

Maybe I should write one... The idea seemed like an interesting challenge, so I started, spending weekends and summer vacations on this project. Eventually... two years later... it was done! A 148-page spelling workbook of words that sound the same as other words... together with exercises, explanations and an answer key. And my list of problem words had grown... from a hundred to two hundred... and eventually to five hundred homonyms!

I took the plunge and self-published it...

The hardest part of self-publishing, after writing the book, is getting it out there, letting people know it exists... I attended literacy and ESL conferences and talked to teachers about my book. Eventually two online bookstores, Grass Roots Press and New Readers Bookstore began to sell it.

Eventually I ran out of copies, so I printed a second edition. To date I have sold about 3000 books.

I am now wondering if I should take the second half of my accumulated material and create a a second spelling resource... of words that my students used to confuse... (like impossible and impassable, except and expect).

The real question is: How much energy do I have?!

2 comments:

  1. Well done!
    Chances are that you have covered less than 10% of these confused words.
    For example: there is pulpit and pull pit. A pull pit is like a manhole, below grade, often much smaller and used for pulling electrical cable etc.

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  2. Once your mind is attuned to these sound-alike words, it's amazing how many you hear around you!

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