Hi Kimberly: Regarding spelling, I find dictionaries to be a little too tolerant these days, i.e. if enough people misuse a word for a long enough time, it shows up in the dictionary too. However, that's more about usage than spelling -- and 'irregardless' of that, you have to have some trusted source for your own sake. Just make sure your kids know that the dictionary may not always be correct, but you still expect them to spell at least as well as the dictionary you have ;-) I'm amazed at the number of online bloggers/posters who will submit rampant misspellings (more than a few obvious typos) and wonder why they are not taken more seriously. At least run spell-check, even if it's not always helpful (e.g. only context-sensitive checkers will catch the common than/then problem, and I doubt most of them would catch affect/effect properly) -Joe (who once won a county spelling championship in high school, but who also not only choked on 'blatant' at the state level, but knows enough to recognize that his skills are somewhat atrophied, 20 years later) >>--Kimberly (who double checks my spelling lessons against the dictionary >>before I teach my kids)