American Home Educating in England

[Scout19075]

We've already made the decision to Home Educate BabyScout and I'm really excited about it. I love watching him grow and am looking forward to helping him continue on that journey for years to come. I am, however, a bit nervous about one thing - spelling/grammar.

I am an American, married to an Englishman, living in England. BabyScout is growing up English as we have no plans on moving from here/back to the US. In all of the years I've known MrScout, it's obvious that our grammar/diction/dialect/spelling is different. Not a problem for us, of course, but I'm worried about confusing BabyScout. What is correct for me (color/center being two big ones) is incorrect for living in England. I obviously read both color/colour and see no mistakes in either - hence the problem. How do I teach/train myself to think "colour" and "centre." I've been here going on six years and I still haven't mastered it. At work I relied on spell check to catch the "mistakes" and when writing emails/posting on line I don't bother "editting" my spelling - I am American, friends/family/colleagues know it and deal with it (even my unit Guider has stopped changing spelling on things I send to the parents as they all know I'm "different").

Any suggestions?

I wouldn't worry a jot about it!
BabyScout is going to be exposed to Enhlish books and stories and writing.

I'd mention it in passing as she gets older, that mummy spells a few things slightly differently and can she BabyScout can help look out for the times mum 'gets it wrong'

Make it part of the fun of growing up with you and she will love to 'help' you!

Thanks julienoshoes! It's started already - we read "The Grouchy Ladybug" by Eric Carle and every now and again I'll hear "Bird" coming from MrScout. We seem to have an equal amount of books from the States and from here so I guess he's already being exposed.

It's fun watching him travel - always looks at my family strangely, like "you sound like Mommy" then looks at MrScout's family strangely on return like "you don't sound like the people I was just with!" Either that, or he's trying to understand the people in the new place.

You know I'm going to have the opposite problem! We are english but there's a high chance we'll be emigrating to the US when eldest is 5/6. We're HEing here and will probably continue for a while once we move and everyone settles in, evaluate the local school etc so ds is likely to have english spelling/grammar reasonably ingrained by then.

Hasn't been a problem for mine. Spelling has only recently become something she can do halfway competently. However, she takes a keen interest in variant spellings, including English/American differences as well as modern/obsolete spellings.

She posts on user forums and prefers to match her spelling to that of other people on the forum. She does it partly for the challenge of it, and partly because I've emphasised she shouldn't share personal information online, including any little clues about she lives.

She is constantly switching the spellchecker back and forth between the British and American dictionaries.

A great many British children are exposed to so many Americanisms that they can't tell the difference either! My British colleagues, computer programmers, used to write "color" because all the programming languages spell it that way.

I'm in the same position as you, but I'll just teach my kids both and say one is how they write in America and one is how they write it here. Like being bi-lingual! Then they're good for wherever they choose to live. It's similar to the vocabulary in speaking I think, and I explain that the same way.

Another American ex-pat home educating in the UK with an English hubby.

Hasn't been much of a problem for us so far - they get a lot of exposure to the local accent through activities and just going out and about and watching British shows/listening to British audio books.

I'd reccommend using a specifically British programme for spelling with the kids (and you can learn along too) particularly as many of home education programmes out there are American. This programme is particularly good, I think. It keeps me from the making the "mistakes" (but my American spelling was never so good in the first place).

Thanks NotJust -- I'll have a look at the link.