# Three words on the list still have no tick beside them

> Eight words under a fridge magnet, five hand-ticked and three still bare — the whole visible record of weeks of practice, kept by a parent, not issued by a school.

August 20, 2026 · https://justog.club/stories/the-word-list-on-the-fridge

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](/stories/the-word-they-say-wrong)
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](/stories/the-reward-chart-that-worked).

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](/stories/the-reading-record-in-two-hands)
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](/shop).

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