At least in America, the educational system has apparently changed since I was a boy (pre-Pleistocene). I think methods of learning to read have changed, and I suspect that spelling is not emphasized.

My memory of how we learned reading and spelling when I was in elementary school is sketchy (nascent Alzheimer's?), but I'm pretty sure it was different from the methods used nowadays.

All this rather worries me, because I can tell that my young Chinese students are looking at whole words, are not paying attention to the sound values of the letters even though I try to get them to, and in short, are learning to spell like Americans!

By the way, I won a silver dollar for spelling in the fourth grade. I think my mom used it one day to pay cab fare. I wish I still had it :-(

Anyway, the words will get spelled somehow.

razoo