My person feeling has always been if my kids directly ask me how to spell something (from the moment they picked up their first crayon) I have always spelled it for them or looked it up for them...or if they were on the computer in a word processing program I would spell it as best as I could and then ask "did you get a red line under it?" and if they did would help them use the spell check.
History...I have always been a poor speller and I HATED being told to "look it up" and always vowed I would never do that to my kids. But I do tell them that I am the last person they should be asking for spelling help. I will give it a go and look it up on the computer to see if I am close but chances are they can spell it better than I can.
Just happen to be advocating for my son and have his Woodcock Johnson Ach-III scores right here and he has a 133 standard score in spelling which is 99%tile...if I were given that test (and on every spelling standardized test I have ever had) I would have MAYBE a 50-60%tile. Spelling is hard for me. I would get 90%tile and above in most stuff...but then Spelling. Thank God for technology and working around problem words.
If spelling is genetic he didn't get it from me. If being nice to your kids and answering their spelling questions works better than "go look it up" then yay for my parenting skills. Oh and I never insisted that they write with perfect spelling, I accepted inventive spelling (seeing that they wrote very early) but I never turned down a request and I always admitted when I wasn't sure but I would find out for them.
