• 1) The bandage was wound around the wound.


• 2) The farm was used to produce produce.


• 3) I did not object to the object.


• 4) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.


• 5) They were too close to the door to close it.

As a mother trying to teach her five-year-old son to read and write, I am discovering just how hard our language is.

I firmly believe learning should be fun, and schools today obviously agree as the emphasis is very much on teaching through play, but the methods used to teach youngsters how to read and write have changed significantly over the years, and I have to confess I am struggling.

My son's school, like many others up and down the country, now teaches reading and writing through phonetics ie. how words sound.

Every week Samuel brings home a sheet of eight words he has to learn. These include: cat, big, rid, hug and may, which phonetically don't pose too much of a challenge, but others are a bit more tricky eg: was, said, like and you.

Despite going over them several times, Samuel is still finding it difficult to understand why you don't spell was, "woz", said, "sed", like, "lyk" and you, "yoow".

So how do I help him learn the correct way without confusing him?

What worries me is, that as you can see from the five examples above, things are only going to get worse. How do you explain that "row" can mean two completely different things?

It's a minefield out there...

Some people would argue that being able to spell is not as important today, thanks to the spellcheck on a computer.

This was no more evident this week for me, then when I went into a well-known cobblers to ask them to engrave a plaque I was having made for my Dad's 60th birthday. Because I was worried about errors, I wrote the inscription on a piece of paper and handed it to the engraver.

It read: To our wonderful Dad on your 60th birthday, lots of love your girls.

"You've spelt wonderful wrong," he said.

"No. I haven't," I replied.

"Yes. You have. It should be wounderful."

"Err, no it shouldn't."

"Look I can prove it to you. I can spellcheck it here and now."

"Go on then," I say.

"Arh," he says, blushing profusely. "Sorry about that, it looks like you were right. Are you an English teacher or something?"

"Um, no. I am a journalist," I say.

"Oh," he said. "Sorry. I am dyslexic."

A dyslexic engraver? Education is a wonderful fing innit!