The Spelling Gene

Even though Katie has Down syndrome she is a very good reader and speller. Here's a sample of Katie's 4th grade spelling words for this week:

telephone

biography
telescope
photograph
microwave
diameter

Most likely, Katie will come home tomorrow with a 100% on this spelling test. I believe she gets the spelling "gene" from my mother who was an executive secretary her whole life. Mom could take old fashioned short hand, transcribe dictation, type well over 100 wpm, correct and edit letters (before there was such a thing as automatic spell checker), and she knew every grammatical rule in the book. You didn't dare play Boggle or any other word game with her because she would whip you. I remember one time that Mom, Grama and I were all going to play Boggle. We shook the dice and although Mom wasn't quite ready to sit down at the table she told Grama and I to go ahead and start. Grama and I jumped right in while Mom leisurely took her time getting ready to play. Mom finally started in after 1 of the 3 minutes had already elapsed. And you know what . . . she still beat us both. My Mom just lives and breathes words. If she hadn't been such a fantastic secretary she would have made a terrific editor.