“I forget how to spell simple words.”
“What are ‘simple words?’”
“Words like ‘the’ and ‘a.’ I can’t remember how to spell them. They just don’t look right.”
“How old are you?”
“Eight.”
“Well, its not Alzheimer’s. You’re too young. What year is this?”
“Why?”
“Just answer the question. Who’s doing the analysis here?”
“It’s 1955, I’m eight, and I’m in second grade.”
“Don’t get uppity with me. I’m trying to help you. Let’s see, in 1955, Alzheimer’s was just beginning to be understood as a disease.”
“I have a ‘disease?’”
“Maybe, but not Alzheimer’s. Today we know Alzheimer’s Disease is caused by changes in the brain beginning in middle age and resulting in a progressive loss of mental ability. Few doctors were diagnosing Alzheimer’s in 1955. Folks talked about senility and old age. You’re too young to be senile.”
“I’m confused. Who are you?”
“I’m you, today, in 2014. I’m me looking back at you and trying to understand what was wrong with us. I’m in your head and, I guess, in this post too.”
“That’s strange.”
“Quite normal these days, but let’s get back to you in 1955. Did you hit your head recently, knock yourself out, lose consciousness?”
“No, I’ve never been unconscious.”
“What about that time the guys tossed a rock and they yelled at you to catch it with your new baseball glove.”
“I missed. I’m not much of an athlete. The rock hit my forehead.”
“And?”
“I bled all the way home. Mom screamed and almost fainted. I have a big scar at the hairline. Here, you can see it.”
“I know it well.”
“I never passed out or felt woozy. Nothing like that. It was a scalp wound. Cuts to the head bleed a lot.”
“Yes, well, I think we can eliminate amnesia. You could loose the memory of ‘the’ and ‘a’ from a good crack on the head, if there was sufficient injury or shock to the neural tissues inside the braincase. When I think of the event, our memories are uncluttered. They’re far too clear.”
“I don’t think I like hearing you say ‘our.’”
“You’ll get use to it. Now, back to work, are you frightened of words?”
“Are you nuts?”
“You better hope not. Do you have a phobia of spelling?”
“A ‘phobia?’”
“A phobia is an irrational fear of something that leads to avoidance of the object, activity or situation. Be honest, I remember those little notes you hid in the palm of your hand.”
“Nobody knows about them.”
“Nobody does not include me. Admit it, why did you write the spelling words on those pieces of paper and hold them in your lap during the tests?”
“I didn’t think I could spell.”
“And?”
“I forgot the list one day.”
“And?”
“I got 100%”
“Bingo. You had a fear of spelling words correctly. Orthographobia is the technical term.”
“I like words. I’m the best student in the class.”
“You had a word phobia and that’s that. Let’s think about what else you had.”
“You think. I’ll listen.”
“I got it. I mean we had it. You still have it.”
“What do I still have?’”
“Dyslexia. Dyslexia is a family of disorders related to reading and writing. The sufferers have trouble integrating auditory and visual information. The sounds don’t match what you see, so you can’t make sense of what’s right in front of your face. The nontechnical name is ‘word blindness.’”
“I’m blind?”
“Not blind blind. You can see fine, but you are blind to ‘the’ and ‘a,’ and I think I finally know why. Remember your phonics class?”
“I’m not very good at phonics. I’m still figuring it out.”
“Exactly. Phonics was teaching us how words as they appear in their written forms are supposed to be pronounced by our mouths. We didn’t like it.”
“Who didn’t like it?”
“You don’t like phonics. Do you see why? You don’t like phonics because the spelled words don’t look to you like they sound in ordinary speech. We resisted the phonetically-defined approach to translating the word’s appearance to the word’s accepted sound. ‘The’ didn’t look like ‘duh,’ which is what it sounds like. ‘A’ wasn’t ‘uh.’”
“That always bothered me. Still does.”
“As it should. And, we were slow to learn and accept the mechanics of phonics because of our innate and irrational fear of spelling. That fear was the personal trauma I was looking for, the equivalent of being hit on the head. Orthographobia blinded us to the phonetical approach to seeing and understanding the ‘the’s’ and ‘a’s’ of our young world. Now, it all makes sense. In my day, we know that forgetting how to spell simple works is a problem many dyslexic people experience. Wow, I never realized we were dyslectic.”
“What am I going to do?”
“Study phonics. You have to learn our way out of this condition. Commit to memory that ‘the’ is spelled ‘the’ and pronounced ‘duh,’ even though it makes no sense. Now that you can spell without a crutch, the roadblock is removed to learning phonics and recognizing ‘the’ and ‘a’ for what they are, simple words you have to work to memorize. You needed a little self confidence, and you gained that when you forgot the cheat sheet and realized you could spell.”
“I wasn’t really cheating. I studied those words. I had the list just in case.”
“I’m with you, but you didn’t know we didn’t need the list because of our orthographobia. Once you realized we could spell, the fear was conquered. Your mind is now free. You can use our memory to see, say and spell those simple words.”
“If you say so.”
“I do. Oh, this feels so good, so good. I’ve worried about us for years.”
“Thanks, I think.”
“You’re welcome. Now, study hard.”
“I will, if you promise one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“You won’t come back for a very long time.”
“Now that’s a promise I can keep. You’re on your own. For now.”
Grandpa Jim
Historical Postscriptology: Other possible names for your consideration for the fear of spelling simple words incorrectly could be “simspellaphobia,” “theaphobia,” and lastly “theanesia,” if the fear causes a brief amnesia while holding a single finger in the air and repeating aimlessly “Duh, Duh, Duh?”