Blogging - A Family Affair

Robbie has been watching me blog for years now... and he enjoys reading them as I type them. But yesterday, he asked me if he could have his own. My first reaction was no because I knew he would want to be on it all the time. But then, I thought about him, the areas where he needs to work and what motivates him. He's been doing a lot more writing of sentences and stories, he has been excited about spelling and the Spelling Bees and the boy loves to talk.

So, I let him have a blog. Yep, my 6 year old is blogging.

Today though, I ran into my first problem. What to do about his spelling. I love the way he writes and I have done very little to correct the spelling when he writes as I'm just happy that he's been working on sounding the words out. But, then I got concerned... as he continues on the blog to spell the words incorrectly. If I let him believe that was how you spell the words, I wouldn't be helping him with his spelling and it could cause him problems at his Spelling Bee next month.

I made the hard decision to sit down with him and work on the spelling. I have to admit that once I told him we were going to work on his spelling, I thought I had made the wrong choice. He got very upset... and I knew he would. He was so proud of his blog and I was telling him that it wasn't right. But after a long talk about mistakes - and how being wrong is how we learn - and showing him that I can't spell either, but there is a great thing called "spell check", he finally arrived to where I was hoping we would be. Where once again, he has found learning fun. He LOVES spell check and he thinks it's funny when the spell check doesn't get it right either (although I was a bit concerned about one of the choices it gave him for his spelling of "actually" - luckily, he's just looking for the right spelling and not paying close attention to the other choices and what they mean). We also left the original sentences so that he could watch his improvement - and because I like his writing, even if it isn't correct.

I know that I have a lot of readers that are educators - and many that have experience with his age bracket. Robbie has been reading since right before his 4th birthday. He has the ability to do much more than he is... but I'm concerned about where to stop. I don't want to over load that sponge of his as he continually pushes for more. I mean, today we discussed apostrophes and when they are used. He's absorbing the information and using it... but in my head, I'm thinking that an apostrophe conversation with a six year old is crazy.

I'd love to hear others opinions (just please be kind). My son is self motivated and loves to do things that challenges him... I just don't want to be the one who holds him back... yet I also don't want to be the type of mom that pressures him before he is ready.

You can visit him at The Life of a 6 Year Old. Finding the name alone, was an interesting exercise.