Three words on the list still have no tick beside them

Fresh white ground. One sheet, held by a single magnet at its top left corner, curling up at the opposite one. Eight words in a neat adult hand, one to a line: because, friend, thought, people, could, might, through, laugh. Five have a small tick beside them. The last three don't.

That's the entire visible record of however many weeks this went on for — five words settled, three still open, kept on a door where nobody has to ask how it's going.

Why do five words get a tick and three don't?

Because five of them got said back correctly enough times in a row, and three haven't yet.

There's no test attached to this sheet and no score. A tick here means one thing: a parent judged that a word had been said enough times without a stumble to count as settled. The three without a tick aren't marked wrong — they're not there yet, which the sheet says by leaving the space beside them empty rather than by writing anything against it.

Why keep the three unticked words on the sheet instead of a fresh list of just those three?

Because the ratio is the point — five done, three not, on one page — and a shorter list would read completely differently.

A sheet of eight with five ticks is a record of progress with three items left. A sheet of three with no ticks at all is a list of what's wrong. Same three words, opposite meaning, depending on whether the five that are already settled stay visible next to them.

What makes the tick mark itself worth printing?

That nobody issued it — it's a system one parent invented on some ordinary evening and kept using.

No school sends home a tick sheet in this shape. It's improvised: a biro mark beside a word that got through cleanly, repeated because it worked the first time. Printing the tick as a slightly uneven hand-drawn mark, not a clean checkbox, keeps that visible — nobody handed this down, it was made up on the spot and it stuck.

Does copying a word list like this need anyone's permission?

No, as long as the list is your own — words picked because they were the ones coming up at home, not a page lifted from an actual worksheet.

The eight words here aren't quoted from any curriculum or printed sheet; they're the kind of ordinary, commonly tricky words a parent collects after a few weeks of listening. If the starting point really was a photocopied worksheet with a school's own heading on it, that heading belongs to whoever made it and shouldn't be reproduced — the words themselves, written out again by hand, are nobody's property.

Isn't this the opposite instinct to the mispronunciation the whole house adopted on purpose?

It is, and both instincts are real — a parent corrects some words and deliberately keeps others.

A word said wrong that the whole family switched to instead of fixing survives because nobody wanted it corrected. The eight words on this sheet are the opposite case: words a parent actively wants said right, tracked until they are. Which words fall into which pile isn't really about the words — it's about which ones the household decided were worth keeping.

Does this work for something other than spelling?

Yes — anything tracked in short bursts with a homemade mark carries the same weight: times tables, or a different tally kept for a different kind of nightly negotiation.

What makes the design work is the mix on one sheet — some settled, some not — rather than the particular subject. A list that was entirely ticked would be a certificate. A list with nothing ticked would just be a list. The interest sits in a sheet caught partway through.

Isn't a homework list a slightly grim thing to put on a shirt?

That reading depends on treating it as an assessment, and this sheet was never that — no grade, no ranking against anybody else, just one parent's own tally kept on their own door.

It sits closer to a page filled in together most nights than to a report card: made in the house, by the house, for nobody outside it to judge. The three bare words aren't a verdict. They're where the list happened to be when somebody photographed it.

Does it print well?

Yes, provided the curl at the corner and the unevenness of the ticks both survive.

One ink for the handwriting and a second, lighter one for the ticks is enough on a plain garment — the felt-tip's soft absorbed edge is worth keeping rather than sharpening into a clean digital line, since that softness is what reads as an actual sheet of paper rather than a printed label.

How do I get one made?

Describe the list at JustOG — the words, and which ones have already earned a tick. Pick a direction, drag the crop frame, see it composited on the real garment, and it's made to order and shipped.

Designs other people have published are in the shop.

Next week the sheet comes down. A new one goes up with different words on it, and the old five stay settled.