I’ve mentioned now and then that we home school.
Yep – I sure do, but this post isn’t about that fact .
It’s about the English language, and my poor kids trying to learn it.
Do you understand how crazy our phonetic system is?
Do you know how hard it is for some children
to decode words, no matter how hard they try?
Tell me why in the world there are EIGHT different ways to spell the LONG A sound?
Think about it…..
ey (they), ay(pay), ai (pail), a-e(cake), ei (as in veil),eigh (weight),ea(break)….
do you get the picture?
Since all five of my children are SO dramatically different in terms of their learning styles,
I have contemplated it all.
I mean good grief…I even speak at home school conferences, for goodness sake.
So when one son read The Hobbit in second grade and polished off The Lord of the Rings by third, I contemplated how easy this home schooling thing was.
And then I began to teach my daughter, and life changed
(insert pretend reflective post on all the monumental ways this mom has grown through teaching this precious blessing).
This delightful 9 year old of mine has struggled.
My precious, kind hearted, responsible, and diligent worker …….struggling…… with the fuh-ne-tics of the English Language.
So when this phone conversation occurred Sunday evening with my hubby….I just had to share, lest I be driven to drink.
(Studying American History, and being the good home school mom that I am, I thought we should rent an educational video.)
Here is what I overheard from my daughter who dialogged as straight faced and sincerely as Mother Teresa.

“Daddy, we picked out a family night movie…..
yes, it’s called the DIARRHEA of Anne Frank.”

Poor, poor Anne….first hiding people in her attic, and now this!