Creative spelling test

I can't resist. I have come across some rather creative attempts to spell a variety of words in the last few weeks. It is amazing what you can piece together when you read the writing in context - we can usually pick out the remnants of a sentence from some letters scrawled together. But take those words out of context, and it can be a bit harder.

Let's see if you can decipher the following gems (answers at the bottom):

• enjoibul
• krer
• menchend
• helfyer
• prefeshernel
• aspeshilly
• ikspirins
• adsbtle soten
• enifing
• dilshersh
• opertunerys
• anafe
• oppsions
• exwizard
• oldenuf
• slekshen
• cejest
• enfusiasome

and these food/cooking related words:

• pisser
• disurt
• buggers
• lezzunyer
• spededy bulinays (there were many, many variations on this)
• snisal

How did you do???

• enjoyable
• career
• mentioned 
• healthier
• professional
• especially
• experience
• absolutely certain
• anything
• delicious
• opportunities
• enough
• options
• exquisite
• old enough
• selection
• suggest
• enthusiasm

and

• pizza
• dessert (not to be confused with desert)
• burgers
• lasagne
• spaghetti bolognese
• schnitzel

You'll be relieved to know (or maybe you don't give a toss, but humour me) that we mark each criteria independently - so if they are attempting to add some interesting words they score for vocabulary, even if they are spelt incorrectly. It is rare a kid is good at everything. Often they write well, have good sentence structure, can spell well, but can't punctuate to save their life. 

And another thing I have learnt (or learned - apparently both are OK - I always wondered about that) is that you can't judge a piece of writing on the handwriting. I have read brilliant pieces that were a bit difficult to decipher because of the appalling handwriting (bring on uni and computers for those kids!) and I have been presented with beautiful handwriting, but a banal attempt at the task. 

On that note, I have marked 1050 scripts, spent 27 nights away from home, had 20 takeaway/restaurant meals (despite the fact that I can, in fact, cook), and had about a billion cups of tea and coffee. Oh! And out of 208 markers, only 5 were not "out of range" (read 'accurate') on the control scripts - and one of them was little old me! A first-time marker, and a science teacher to boot! I'm pretty proud of myself.

I actually got to work with some lovely, lovely people, who I will miss when I go back home. But there is thankfully Facebook and maybe we will reunite next year.

But I've finished Naplan for this year and am headed back to normality (as soon as I can figure out what is normal anyway). See you there!