Spelling - Kids' Poems and Stories With Michael Rosen
Spelling is a poem by Michael Rosen from the book, When Did You Last Wash Your Feet?
Transcript[]
DISCLAIMER: This is a transcript for a video of Michael performing the poem/book, not a transcript from the actual poem/book itself.
When we did spelling, it wasn't like the way you do spelling. You know your teacher says, "Right, you've got some words to learn tonight." And then you go home and if you got those things where it says, "check, comfort, learn, read, coverlet, learn, check." If you got one of those, yeah my daughter has that and if check, learn, cover, read, check, read, cover, check, learn, cover... huge bits of paper. It's longer than the word itself, the word says something like bat, check, comfort, learn, read, discover, learn, check, read by the time we get to the end, you're so tired you've forgotten the word at the beginning, but anyway, look and then she comes in the next day and the teacher says, "Right, we got to do... your spelling test now. Okay?" A... bat and you sit there and you go, "Bat". "Uhhh... that was set begin with umm... MSD isn't it? Yeah, D." and you look across your mate... "Oh right!" "Brilliant begins with a C does it? Alright, okay. C A T good, right that spelt, "Bat." Good yeah. Lovely, and then the teacher says, Right! Okay. we're just gonna check them now. Uhhh... bat uh that spelled B A T did you get that right? You go, *chiceeeeeeee* Yeah I got that right, yeah that's right! Oh no it wasn't like that in the Stone Age. Oh no, this is how it was every Friday, she wrote twelve words up on the blackboard. Twelve words up on the blackboard and then she'd say, LEARN THEM!! She had that nice way of making you feel at home at school. LEARN THEM!! And then you had to write down the twelve words in your notebook. Uh huh yeaumm uhheeuumm uhheheuh and you got them all in your notebook, and now you've got a whole week to learn them. We had used to have a whole week, so every morning, on the way through the Memorial Park on the way to school, I'd be practicing my words. Umm... disappear uhh... D I S S S S it's quite few S-es uh... Oh no it's only one right? Okay, yeah. Uhh... I'ma go "obedient" to O B um... oh right right see I'm practicing my words till you come in the following Friday. You know what she's doing? She's rubbing the words off the blackboard, *shew**shew* cause you know what you've got coming up now is the... Spelling Test! And this what it goes, her finger starts roaming round the room... looking for someone... and then she's gonna go, YOU! And then you have to stand up, and spell out the word, in front of everybody. Okay? Only she wasn't looking for somebody who could spell. She was looking for someone who couldn't spell, so they'd stand up, get it wrong and be shamed up in front of everyone else. This is what they used to call, a shame up hour ... like this. And I figured it out, if you didn't want her to pick on you you had to look... like you could spell. How'd you look like you can spell... like this: doo doo doo doo doo doo I couldn't spell, but I looked like I could. You see de de de dee dee de do do do doo do do she didn't pick on me, these other kids are sitting there going, *crying* "Don't pick on me!" *crying* and there's always one kid who'd be hiding behind someone else you see *crying* and she could see, right through kids' bodies she could go straight through and see the kid behind going *crying*noooo! Don't ask me disappear! She'd go, YOU Huuhh!! HOW DO YOU SPELL... "ASPARAGUS!!" And the trouble was... she never told you how to say the words. You didn't know that it said, "asparagus"... you had the word, "asparagus" but you thought that it said, A speed U EG. You'd learn A speed U EG, she's asking you, How do you spell "asparagus"? And you go, Asparagus? Asparagus? She didn’t give us asparagus it's not fair. WHAT'S IT BEGIN WITH?!!! Um... A... Asparagus. What's that? Sounds a bit like a bellyache. I've got a very bad asparagus. It's just in there you know when you are feeling a bit sick I mean, I got asparagus. See, I like that so you go, She's gone what's it begin with? It's going round around your head. WHAT'S IT BEGIN WITH?!!! S? NOO!! YOU!! And that's my mate Jimmy. She'd go, YOU!! And Jimmy, it was very quick he goes, "Uh... I had to see the doctors' miss." See that? He was right in there, she went "EVERY NIGHT" "Well no, no, not actually," and "YOUR BREATHING!! I'm not! WELL YOU ARE NOW!!" Hold your breath, *(Michael took a deep breath*. Oh, spelling that was difficult so again, very difficult to write, if you're worrying about the breathing and the spelling.