Spellbound

2. Do homonyms get you down? Pick some that you commonly mix up and come up with a creative way to remember how to tell them apart in the future. 

I commonly mix up many homonyms. It is very difficult to differentiate them because they have the same spelling AND the same pronunciation. The only "creative" way I can think of is to make a little game in your head playing with these homonyms. The game would be like this.

          Example:

1. When I was going up the mountain I saw a gigantic ________.

2. Please kids, ________ with be. I am really tired.

The word or homonym that we need to use "bear". On the line you will need to write the word "bear" and in parenthesis you need to put which definition if this word are you using to complete the sentence. The first one would be bear the animal. The other one would be the bear to carry. After doing this with other homonyms like: train, bow, miss, type, lean, lap, etc. You will have a clearer idea.

*The only way you can tell homonyms apart is by the context of the sentence or the text. This is the only source because if spelling and pronunciation are the same, then the context clues are the ones that will let you determine which of the two meanings is best for that specific sentence.


5. Should we still spelling bees? Why? Why not?

I think that we should have spelling bees but only in languages like English and French for example because they are languages that have a really hard spelling. Spelling bees are a fun, competitive and effective way to learn the spelling of words. There are mysteries in these languages because you have words that have letters that do not sound the way they are supposed to and also letters that don't sound at all. But they are there.

          Example: 

English: enough, though, through, tough, etc.

French: yeux, rois, noix, aime, frais, anglais, deux, etc.

*Spelling beed can improve also your writing because after you practice all of these words in a spelling bee (or numerous spelling bees) you will hardly make a spelling mistake in your life. Languages like Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and German for example wouldn't be so effective to a spelling bee because all the words in these languages is pronounced at it is written.