THIS week my nine-year-old had a spelling test.

Among the words that were causing her problems were the words ‘isosceles’ and ‘circumstance’.

Somehow she managed to spell ‘scalene’ and ‘polyhedron’, which I personally would have had issues with too.

She tended to put an ‘e’ after the ‘c’ in circumstance.

Then she would put an extra ‘I’ in ‘isosceles’.

‘Hexagon’ and ‘octagon’ were there for the taking really as you spelt them as you said them.

I was never a good speller in my younger days.

In fact, I had serious issue with words like ‘train’. I managed to always put the ‘i’ and ‘a’ in the wrong place.

And ‘believe’ was also troublesome.

If I couldn’t spell something, I would find a way of not using it in the sentence.

Things haven’t changed much. I still use that same tactic if I think I am getting too close to the words I don’t like.

The best way to not let anyone know you are a bda speller is simply use the basic words.

Why try to impress people and gain a reaction when there is no need too?

I also had big issues with comas.

For instance, I never knew exactly where one puts a coma in a sentence?

Knowing where to use a coma is much like cooking a lasagne. Some people can do it and some people can’t.

To be honest I am not sure how I managed to forge a career as a writer but I think once you get a word wrong you never forget about it.

So, my trianing method ensured she wrote out the word as many times as possible until she figured which one was the correct spelling.

Soon enough she realised exactly how to spell it.

I was also a little perplexed as to the type of words a nine-year-old had to learn.

There is no way any of my learned friends would know how to spell ‘vertices’.

I don’t even know what ‘vertices’ means.

And when in your life are you ever going to need to use the word scalene?