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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to be fed up with correcting teacher's spelling mistakes

321 replies

dealer · 26/11/2011 23:13

No doubt I will now write a post riddled with spelling mistakes, but I'm not teaching small children in my defence.

I accept, no-one can spell everything, and I would not be surprised if a teacher had to look up stationary/stationery for instance. But I'm really fed up with ones that I would expect children to be able to spell turning up in homework/letters/displays. And I feel compelled to correct them.

Recently we've had Antartica, in huge coloured letters on a display. Got me a very grumpy response since he then felt he had to change it. We've had a work sheet home with Autum on. My son asked for barbecue/barbeque in his spelling book (not sure how to spell it myself) but I think the teacher writing bar-b-q is a bit out of order. And the latest one is the teacher correcting squirl to skwirel on homework. I wrote on it in red 'teacher please correct correctly', possibly a bit snotty of me but I'm getting fed up of it.

Do other people get this? And do they get annoyed? Or AIBU?

OP posts:

runningwilde · 27/11/2011 09:53

Downbytheriverside, maybe the difference is that because I do a lot of editing as part of my work I really have to be on top of poor spelling etc, so I edit in a certain way to ensure I spot all the mistakes! :)

exoticfruits · 27/11/2011 09:54

Always the exception-I was one-I simply don't see the words.

exoticfruits · 27/11/2011 09:54

I couldn't proof read I read what I expect to read-not what is there.

simbo · 27/11/2011 09:55

I blame my dd's poor attitude to, and aptitude for, accurate spelling on a reluctance to correct spelling in KS1.

The teacher my ds had last year had very poor spelling and no grasp of the difference between spoken and written language. Her letters to parents were very colloquial and ungrammatical.

The problem is that widespread use of bad spelling and inappropriate commas seems to legitimise the practice in the eyes of children, who should be learning to do things correctly.

Bonsoir · 27/11/2011 09:56

My DD's teachers generally have correct spelling but I am very shocked by the colloquial style of their written communication. Fortunately she is only 7, but I wouldn't trust any of them to teach her to write essays!

tallulah · 27/11/2011 10:04

Like Huntycat's DC my DD told her teacher she was wrong when they were learning about Anglo Saxons. She'd told them AS basically lived in a hole in the ground. I was studying that period for a BA at the time, we'd been to several reconstruction sites and DD knew the teacher was wrong. So she told her

My Dc are 25 - 20 and while they were at school their spellings were never corrected. I complained several times to the school, to be told they didn't want to "interrupt their creative flow" and that the spellings would come later. But if you learn them wrong you never do get them right. Two of my DC are voracious readers - just as I am - but neither can spell.

On a similar subject, I'm studying AAT at an FE college. We had a survey round to see what we thought of the college (I'm betting they'll be glad they asked ). One of the questions was (and I kid you not) how good is the respect you get from your tutor? I made a note by the question that that wasn't English and left it blank.

clam · 27/11/2011 10:11

The errors on here that irritate me most - and crop up ALL the time - are loose (as in lose), draw (as in drawer) and persue.
And, whilst not technically a spelling mistake, those who write the past tense of text (as in "I texted him") as text.

Re sqwirel, I just don't believe that. I'm wondering if it was just badly handwritten, as a U followed by an I could be mistaken for a W. Then the I might have been intended as the missing R? Does that make sense?

WowOoo · 27/11/2011 10:11

DownbytheRiverside. I know, I know!
But for the purposes of the Y1/ Reception revision work it was to differentiate a square and a rectangle.
If I could show you the work, you would agree it was confusing. Many other parents commented on it also. Wish I'd scanned and saved it.

StopRainingPlease · 27/11/2011 10:12

WowOoo:

"When you tell someone they've made a mistake they feel crap, don't they?
I'd love to know how to point out the errors in a nice way."

I left it till parents' evening. I'd already had the "We don't always correct spelling in creative writing" spiel from teachers at previous parents' evenings, but when the spelling book came home full of errors marked correct I brought it up again, and said, "What's your policy on spelling correction? Only I notice that on this page there are 8 mistakes that have been ticked right." (She said she must have not been paying attention and would be more careful...). Don't suppose anything changed though...

PontyMython · 27/11/2011 10:29

Downbytheriverside I remember that square rectangle thread! Was along with you and pretty much everyone else on that thread (had a different name then)

a child corrected the teacher and was known and addressed as cleverclogs or smartypants for the rest of the year by the teacher never by his name

That is actually quite horrible, IMO.

WowOoo · 27/11/2011 10:32

StopRaining: At least she admitted carelessness and said she'd try harder.
If it's in a SPELLING book that would annoy me so much.

This teacher couldn't understand difference between your and you are/you're. She had made these comments a few times, so I thought it's not just tiredness or a one off. Got a bit defensive and so I have left a lot go unchallenged since. It's a jobshare and the other teacher seems much better, so that's something to be thankful for.

talkingnonsense · 27/11/2011 10:49

I am a reasonable speller ( make loads of typos mumsnet ting on my phone though!), and I don't always correct every misspelling in creative work- it depends on how confident the child is and how hard they have tried. I do tend to correct automatically though and sometimes it's and effort to stop and say, hey this will demoralise x who has tried hard.
I agree with whoever said spelling deteriorates though, after correcting some homonym work ( there, their, they're) I was completely unable to get the right word for days!

Sleepingonthebus · 27/11/2011 11:05

I always correct mis-spellings.

We once got a letter home, asking for the spelling homework to be in by Wedensday"

hackmum · 27/11/2011 11:09

I'm shocked at some of these examples. I think the problem is that we now have a generation of teachers in their 20s and 30s who weren't taught properly themselves. Their spellings weren't corrected, and so they don't know how to spell. Whereas correct spelling and grammar were once regarded as basic and fundamental attributes that you needed just to get you through O-level, now you can get a degree without being able to spell, because apparently it's not important any more.

Tigerstripes · 27/11/2011 11:21

Solo2: that may indeed have been the case that the teacher didn't want to debt your child's confidence by marking every incorrect spelling. I have no idea what it's like at primary but at secondary I certainly do not pick a child up on every spelling mistake. If a child is a particularly poor speller I will mark three wrong and tell them to correct. If a child is a good speller but has tried new words and got them wrong, I'll write something like "there are four incorrect spellings on this paragraph. Find them and look them up".

Tigerstripes · 27/11/2011 11:21

Sorry, dent!

smartyparts · 27/11/2011 11:36

My ds teacher in Year 2 thought Mary Queen of Scots and Bloody Mary were the same person. Great

Kaekae · 27/11/2011 11:36

My spelling isn't great at all but for some reason I can notice if something is misspelt. Even if I can't get my head to work out how to spell it, I will check the correct way. Must say my son learning phonics is helping me!! Anyway, the other day my son received his first award certificate and enthusiastic was misspelt. Was annoyed because this is probably one of those certificates I'd like to have as a keepsake. I didn't bother showing his teacher but I will keep an eye on things from now on. Then I discovered a picture of his teacher smoking a bong on facebook and that shocked me even more.

inmysparetime · 27/11/2011 11:40

I have been known to glance at the DCs homework over their shoulders, and spot several errors in the typed worksheets. It's as if incorrectly spelt words jump out from the page

hackmum · 27/11/2011 11:45

I can understand typos. I can read something I've written 12 times and not spot the typos. So you could be generous and assume something like "Wedensday" was a typo (though you'd think the spellchecker would pick it up).

Not being able to spell "squirrel" is a in different league. A friend of mine visited a school recently where in one of the classrooms they'd labelled different items to help the children with their reading. The drawer was labelled "draw".

complexnumber · 27/11/2011 11:47

On the subject of children correcting adults: 8 year-old DD2 corrected a local history author about the name of a pub. So proud.

HeraldAngelSinging · 27/11/2011 12:01

I worked at a school and the Head of English was a bad speller; for example, 'ammend'. She should not have been an English teacher, let alone a Head of English!

zipzap · 27/11/2011 12:06

I pointed out to ds1's teacher that there was a spelling mistake on the curriculum sheet for the home and that it was unfortunate that it happened to be on the bullet point for 'do daily spelling practise (sic) at home' :). And I mentioned there were a couple of others in there but didn't mention what.

I was very nice and did say I hope you don't mind me pointing this out... The teacher is very nice and was suitably embarrassed - but I think that the leaflet is done by the head of year rather than her so she said she would pass it on to the person responsible to change it. :)

And when I was at school I remember having an argument withthe geography teacher as we were doing Milton Keynes and she said it was named after two famous Britons. So I asked if it was merely coincidence then that one of the original villages swallowed up in the new city was called Milton Keynes (and is pretty old - if not in the doomsday book then from soon after, has a Norman church etc). Was fairly confident about this as a neighbour worked on it's development board. Needless to say she was fairly unimpressed, especially when she checked and discovered I was right! :)

CardyMow · 27/11/2011 12:19

Flyingspaghettimonster - I'm afriad, my DS1 DID speak like that at 5yo. Now he is 9yo, he has gained a lot more tact, and has learnt to approach situations like that a lot more sensitively. He may have been very forward academically at 5yo (as he is now), but his social skills were still at a 5yo level...

Mind you, if he KNOWS he is right, he has to bite his tongue VERY hard not to jump right out and say so - it takes a huge effort from him to make sure he is gentle and tactful about it now.

CardyMow · 27/11/2011 12:39

In fact, this week, he didn't correct his maths teacher, who he KNEW was wrong - he just came home and moaned at me about it. His maths teacher asked the class what the name for a 2-d, twelve sided shape was. When the children answered that it was a dodecahedron, and the teacher told them that it was the correct answer, he was, according to him, screaming inside his head that it was a dodecaGON because it was 2-d.

He is still extremely infuriated by it even 4 days later...

He also says that spelling mistakes and grammatical errors just 'jump out' at him from things like shop signs. He gets irrationally annoyed by rogue apostrophes. At 9yo.

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