#spellers

Tell me, what is fair about that?

Some people even think we shouldn’t be able to use word prediction on the keyboard because it may influence what we want to say. But everyone else is able to use it to make typing easier. Being held to a higher standard is like being under a microscope at all times, and I can tell you it stinks. I hate feeling like I constantly have to prove myself. YOU are able to get up and give a presentation in front of an audience without others whispering “so you think he really wrote that?” or “but how can someone who looks like that be able to feel and think that way?”

- Gregory Tino

Essentially it’s a type of augmentative assistive communication (aac) used by nonspeaking autistic individuals. There is a communication partner who holds a letter board and may provide verbal prompts to help spellers initiate pointing to letters to spell out their thoughts (no physical contact is involved).

If you’re interested in learning more I recommend reading Underestimated by JB and Jamison Handley or watching Spellers the Movie (documentary) on YouTube!

If you could please support my ability to pay for the program it would be so appreciated!

SPELLERS The Movie ( link ) spellersfreedomfoundation.org

SPELLERS ( link ) YouTube

Wood Engraving Wednesday

ALEXANDER ANDERSON

In Britain, the great early popularizer of wood-engraved illustrations was Thomas Bewick (1753-1828). In America, it was the physician and wood engraver Alexander Anderson (1775-1870), who was among the earliest of American wood engravers. He was very long-lived and active and his engravings may be found in many American publications throughout the 19th century, especially for the American Tract Society and Noah Webster’s series of Spellers, including this 1848 edition of The Elementary Spelling Book, published in New York by G. F. Cooledge & Brother. As a physician, Anderson is distinguished as the first doctor at what would become New York City’s Bellevue Hospital in 1795. He published as a wood engraver while practicing as a doctor, but devoted himself solely to engraving after 1820.

This edition of The Elementary Spelling Book is identified as “The Last Revised Edition,” which in itself is “an improvement” of Webster’s American Spelling Book that originally began as A Grammatical Institute of the English Language in 1783, was revised as the American Spelling Book in 1787, and had its final revision in collaboration with New York educator Aaron Ely in 1829, a year after Webster published his famous An American Dictionary of the English Language. 

This page contains a new (and useful) word for the day -- froward, pertaining to a person who is difficult to deal with

From: The Virginia primer. Richmond : J.R. Keiningham, 1864