How much spell check is too much?

Happy to agree to disagree

I think you’re mistaking challenging you by using a real life example as ‘defensive’.
But as a parent a former teacher, you’re wrong. If the focus of the writing is spelling or grammar, correct it. If it isn’t, correct the spellings the child should know (and that will depend on the child) but leave the rest. Correcting absolutely everything helps no one and serves to undermine confidence.

You're very defensive.

Personally I think if something is wrong, in an educational setting in particular, then it needs to be marked as wrong.

He could he a published author using spell check and a good proof reader. He has SEN. No amount of having a teacher highlight his numerous incorrect spellings (of vocabulary most wouldn’t be using at his age) on his page will change that. It doesn’t make his writing any less impressive. Unless you are unable to see past that issue.

But surely the point is to teach him? These spellings are wrong so you can practice them. You needed a comma there. If he has beautiful writing and learns to spell then maybe he can be a published author one day.

Why do they? Why should my child who struggles and will likely always struggle due to their issues be put off his beautiful writing because their spelling is poor? He won’t be forced to improve because a teacher or TA corrects every one of his mistakes so what purpose does it serve?

But surely someone who is good at writing and wants to write needs to know spellings and grammar? Knowing it will make things easier in the long run.

@SwingTheMonkey

Maths is entirely different. There is a right or wrong answer.

But surely it's demoralising to be corrected.

With writing, you can be an excellent writer whilst having poor spelling

You could be an excellent writer and have excellent spelling if someone corrected you. Schools teach spelling and grammar don't they?

There's a right and a wrong way to work out a sum and there's a right way to spell and children are there to learn.

Completely counterproductive to only correct some of the spellings; this implies that the others must be correct even if they’re not. Spelling and grammar is something I was raised strictly on and something I am strict about with my own. I would be very unhappy to hear the teacher was being “soft” on this, I certainly am not.

Maths is entirely different. There is a right or wrong answer. With writing, you can be an excellent writer whilst having poor spelling. You can’t be an excellent mathematician if you aren’t able to calculate correctly.

I think when I was at school we had two types of writing- creative when only a few errors in spelling and grammar were corrected. Ideas were given on structuring a story, using adjectives to make it interesting or how to write a news article.
The rest was fully corrected. However im still rubbish at spelling because they just did loads of creative work not the formal stuff.

Do they do the same with other subjects? Correct three maths mistakes and leave the rest. Correct three historical errors and leave the rest, because it's demoralising to be wrong.

How do children learn if no one corrects them?

If my youngest had every spelling corrected, his page would be full of green/purple, whatever colour is used, because his spelling is poor. He writes absolutely beautifully however, with amazing vocabulary. What purpose would there be for correcting every one of his mistakes? His spelling is phonetically plausible, he just struggles (but is not dyslexic). He’ll likely always struggle with spelling to an extent. I’d rather he understood that he is great at writing (and have spell check help him in the future) than be disheartened by a sea of corrections on his otherwise wonderful work.

How many excellent future writers would we discourage by doing this?

Depends on the focus of the lesson, I taught science at secondary, the school policy was correct three spelling and each department focussed on the specialist language for their subject. Spelling tests you correct every spelling because that's the focus. Teaching a lesson on heat transfer your primary focus is on 'conduction', 'convection', 'radiation', 'particles' and 'transfer'.

Students get upset both by a sea of red/green/purple (whatever your marking colour is) over their work especially if they have taken time with presentation and the teacher scrawls over the page as well as every imperfection being picked up on. There isn't enough time to deal with every fault and it takes value away from the lessons focus, I'm more interested in whether they understood the concept than whether they spelt inconsequential words correctly.

I agree my daughters have always been bad at spelling and art last part of that is because whenever I corrected it in their homework, they said the teacher wasn't bothered.

Personally, I’d rather my children had all errors pointed out so they have the opportunity to correct. They are learning - isn’t it better to frame it in this way rather than ignore errors?

I can't believe this is the norm?! How do they learn if they believe the wrong spelling is right?

Everyone makes mistakes when they're learning, but if those mistakes aren't pointed out to them, how will they learn from them?

I learned from my Dad's reactions that it wasn't safe to make mistakes, and so still struggle with feeling awful about making any, but I don't think it helps to develop the appropriate resilience in children to ignore spelling mistakes.

For the same reasons you give OP, I think it's ridiculous that you are being told not to correct them! Jeez. If you have to compromise, then I still say you should correct ALL of the mistakes, but fair enough only get them to rewrite 3 of them.

Times change. The way things were marked in the past did nothing to improve spelling - plenty of people were illiterate despite the heavy use of the red pen.

As if it is 'lazy teaching' - teachers had less to do in the past, as standards for everything are higher now and the paperwork far more demanding.

FFS.

No wonder so many people can't spell.

My DC is younger, but we were told they correct what they would be expected to know, but not anything else. So, example, if they write "My frend liks chocklit", they'd only correct likes as the others have been sounded out and they wouldn't know the proper spelling yet.

Presumably it's similar reasoning.

Spelling is only one part of a piece of writing, and covering it in corrections would distract from other aspects.

It'd be pretty soul destroying as a kid (and they're quite young still) to have something returned with 10s of words underlined per page. Adults find it hard when a written piece has lots of corrections / suggestions! It'd also be daunting to see red everywhere and a child wouldn't take it all in. Focusing on a few is probably better, hence the policy. Also, if it's 3 per page, surely on the second page you could ignore ones already mentioned and focus on ones not already picked up? Or focus on the most important.

Yes perhaps ask about it when you go for your next interview if you apply for a similar role in future