To think literacy standards are not falling in way reports state? Did anyone see Sky TV interview earlier?

[Cortina]

Saw a report earlier that literacy standards in the UK are too low. We are continuing to fall behind in terms of the international league table.

Will come back and link to the report. I was struck by the TV row between the presenter and a teacher spokesperson. Did anyone see the interview? There was also a head of a UK based Chinese school who said she believed that part of the problem lay with parents who were not spending sufficient time helping children learn at home. She said good study habits needed to be laid down by the age of seven.

My thoughts are not that we are doing increasingly badly but other countries are doing better. More countries are involved in the international league table than previously too.

I've seen so many posts on threads here, where a teacher who can't spell or express themselves correctly is stoutly defended as wonderful with the children.

Then someone will say that qualifications do not automatically make a good teacher.

It is not too much to expect teachers to have excellent qualifications, to spell correctly, and speak using correct grammar. This will not stop them from being able to relate to children.

lashingsofbingeinghere is the average comment wrong, because by definition if there is any variation there will be some below the average?

I don't know and was embarrassed to ask.

My child got Level 5 in Year 6 SATS for English and I was delighted.

Now they are at secondary and bringing a lot more work home so I can see it, I am appalled and am considering getting a tutor to improve it. Just awful. If Level 5 is above average, goodness knows what below average is.

Signed
Appalled and dismayed of Mumsnet

At DH's office all graduate applicants have to undertake an aptitude test which includes a literacy section where they have to identify 8 errors in grammar, punctuation etc. Over 90% of these applicants fail this test

As a Secondary English teacher, I can't help jumping in at this point. Many teachers of my generation went through the education system when no grammar teaching was done. Yes, I teach with many people who, in my opinon, lack basic punctuation and grammar skills thanks to the educational climate of the 1980s.
However, these skills are being given a much higher status and the new GCSE (for as long as it exists, humph) does prioritise and reward excellent accuracy of language.

I'm not sure if this is a flameable (< sp? lol!) offence to admit this, but I am surprised at just how well the vast majority of posters spell and construct sentences on this website :D I know we are older than our kids and some of them have spell checkers on their pc/ipad/mobile but it's still bloody good.

I agree that the level of spelling and grammar on MN is high.

I would like to hear from some of the people who went through the system when there was no tuition in spelling and grammar. I believe, although I was marked for spelling and grammar, that lot of my real knowledge came from reading. One of the reasons I hate the 'Kidz Kornerz' style of writing now is that I don't think children see the correct spellings enough to differentiate. They don't know when something looks wrong because they haven't seen words spelled correctly enough. Adults have taken on the stupid spelling to look hip morons and I think it does everyone a disservice.

Mrs Terry Pratchett: a lot of people first learned about grammar when they began to study a foreign language. That's certainly what got me started.

Correcting spelling after the fact does not help much, because they have already written it wrongly and developed the memory of the incorrect spelling.

When I was in infants we started off writing by saying what we wanted to write, the teacher would write it properly, then we would copy it out. Still just as creative, but without the entrenchment of bad spelling.

I don't see that this would take any longer than going round the tables deciphering what the DCs have written and then pencilling in translations where necessary, which is what they did with DS.

My last post on this and then I must go and organise Yr 11 Controlled Assessment folders!
LeQueen, there are times when it is appropriate to overlook spelling mistakes in an individual piece of work. There could be a particular target you are working on, you could be assessing reading rather than written skills or it could be that you want to reward a child for what they have done rather than penalising their mistakes. Of course, this is only possible in a wider context where you do check spellings and grammar regularly and do not let them fall by the wayside.
It is not a simple binary opposition of creativity v following the rules. In fact, knowledge of the 'rules' of English increases a writer's ability to be creative.

Sorry, how on earth can you have been told what words your son needs to learn for his SATs?

We were given a big long list of words with 'Spellings for Year 6 SATs' as its header.

I read a lot of books when I was growing up and that's why my spelling is good.

You're never going to get every kid reading loads of books, though.

Phonetic spelling is still very useful.

I had lessons at school about silent letters, using two letters to create a different sound (oo, au etc) and then the teacher would say some words out loud and you would have to figure out what letters should be used to create that sound. Is this still done?

I have to agree about the poor level of grammar which seems to exist today.
Surely there is room to teach grammar in literacy?
When I was at school we did both a lesson on literacy ie looking at books, reading them together then at home, creative writing etc. Then we did lessons focussing on specifics such as correct grammar and spellings.
I too am amazed at the general lack of good grammar which exists in Britain today.
I was also taught to copy the teachers writing and on reflection think it was a good idea. The same applies to rote learning which I often see criticised by more so called modern thinking educationalists. However, unless it is pure coincidence, I appear to have a far better grasp of numbers and their function than those who have not been taught by rote.

I am genuinely astonished by the number of young adults who simply cannot divide and multiply mentally. I put this down to the laisez faire approach of "modern teaching."

I am not bashing teachers full stop but do think that a lot of what is being taught, or how it is being taught, is simply not working.

Unfortunately, the rules were not drummed into us at school. I have bought myself several books and am checking up on rules. It is appalling that I came out of school not knowing what an adverb is. I did learn a lot of things by osmosis, but when I have to teach dd a rule, I flounder and am not sure it is right. We were taught about apostrophes though.

(Is there supposed to be a comma before the but? )

I really wish that I had a secure grasp of grammar.

I was in Primary during the 80's, I remember lots of spelling tests, not much was mentioned about grammar. Dd seems to be learning about sentence structure and connectives and what not. Perhaps she could teach me, I always used to write super dooper long sentences in essays, I'm still not totally sure when to start a new paragraph either .

The 23% below the average, made me snigger though.

I would say that it has a lot to do with SATs and 'teaching for the test'. As a supply teacher I have been shocked on occasion to get 'you don't need to do that because they don't get it in the SATs'.
They also don't have to think for themselves-it is very much 'this is a persuasion text and for a persuasion text you do x,y and z.
They also get very caught up with all the things they need to include in a piece of written work for SATs so that they don't see the wood for the trees e.g. lots of adjectives, but a story that doesn't go anywhere.
The bright ones are fine-the less bright get confused.
Also everything is in short chunks-20 mins and on to the next thing. There is little opportunity for reading whole books, just a few passages.

Hmm, DS1 constantly tells me that spelling and grammar don't matter and that the teachers don't care about mistakes (his mistakes are rarely corrected). He hates doing corrections and it is a battle to make him go over his work with me. His perception is that if the teacher's don't seem to mind mistakes then they are not important and I am just an old-fashioned fusspot.

The sky high unemployment rates for young people will do alot to focus minds.

Brian Cox is getting the credit for making Physics the in subject but imv it could just as easily be the lack of jobs and well-pubicised world-wide shortage of engineers.

Sadly the poor english of our future engineers won't help when they are competing against conscientious asian students.

Sorry-I seem to have got stuck on 'also'!

I don't remember learning too much about grammar at primary school (although that might partly be due to being sooo long ago!) but I do remember spelling tests.

In secondary school I can remember spending the first term of English learning grammatical rules. Our English teacher was also our Latin teacher and we needed these rules for both (also came in handy for French and German). I also remember having dictation, where marks would have been for spelling and punctuation. In addition we did a separate O'level for English Language and a separate one for English Literature, and we had to sit both.

Also all our teachers impressed upon us the need for correct spelling etc. and if there were errors, marks would be lost.

In comparison my DH (who is slightly younger than me ) sat GCSEs and his experience of English teaching (and in fact teaching in general) is very different to mine (he is very ashamed to admit that he did not know what an adverb was, until I told him when discussing it with our DS). The teaching ethic, especially in respect of languages, seemed to be "if it is nearly right that will do"