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 can't believe that people think that the word remedial is still acceptable

Teachers do not corrrect everything for a reason, but they should correct some things, for example: the spellings the children are supposed to have learnt. The mistakes children make should be used to set personal targets or as the basis of a separate lesson, not just ignored. Why not praise the use of an adventurous word and model the correct spelling to the child, or ask a child how they could make their writing better?

are you a teacher blackeyedsusan?

''I'm sickened by all this fancy-dancy teacher-esque Oh, we just prefer to let their creativity flow, we don't like to drum grammar or spelling into them, in case it stifles or bores them'

Perhaps you should train to be a teacher. You may actually know what you were talking about then.

Voidka, if you were given a list that purports to contain the words your child will need to learn for his KS2 spelling test, then either:
a)The school is merely taking a guess based on the type of words that have been used previously. But they can hardly know which words will come up, since the test takes the form of filling in the gaps in a longer piece of text, usually a non-fiction text loosely connected to either the reading test or the writing test subject matter, or

b) they are already in receipt of the test materials ( quite possible if they are using the new system) and have already opened them to see which words are on the test. If this is the case, they are cheating. The assessment and Reporting arrangements here is very clear that whether tests are administered under the old or new system, the test papers may not be opened until one hour before the test unless prior written permission has been obtained from the NCA. This needed to be done by the end of February (I have made several applications both this year and in the past, either for extra time for pupils or for early opening, so am familiar with the process). The thing is, even early opening is only granted to allow the school time to make arrangements for a child to access the tests, not to give them all a heads up on the words they will be asked to spell.

I sincerely hope that the school is having a punt on this, because if not, they are running the risk of having all the English results for all the children annulled.

My literacy and grammar are appalling even though I got Bs for English at GCSE. DS is 9 and in year 4, he already knows much more than me & goes to a bog standard state school. His spelling is a bit off sometimes, but it's heading I the right direction.

correct -sticky keyboard, the w and r are the worst.

Correcting everything has a demoralising effect on children.
I am going to give up now as my typing is abysmal, as is my spelling.

I'm still at a loss as to what is wrong with the statement that 23% are below average.

Is it because people are under the misapprehension that half of all children have to be below average?

Could somebody explain what is amusing about 23% of children being below average?

I think it's because it was presented as a bad thing. If 23% of children only wrote as well as HG Wells while the rest were Shakespeare and Dostoevsky that wouldn't be a bad thing for the 23%. It's meaningless to say that 23% were below average because it says nothing about quality. It is likely that previously more than 23% were below average. That doesn't mean standards were worse.

Correcting everything has a demoralising effect on children

But probably not as demoralising as wondering why you never get a call back for an interview, the reason being because the prospective employer is using your CV as hamster bedding because you can't spell.

The Brits seem to have this blind spot whereby they are unable to process what employers continually say that they want

Employers: We want people who can spell, add up and turn up on time
Population: But surely you want creative thinkers who, like, can think critically and be creative and stuff? This grammar doesnt really matter does it?
Employers: Yes it does. For every creative thinker I need about 1000 other people with acceptable basic skills
Population: la, la, la la la can't hear you. I'm off to do medja studies.

Maybe if spelling and grammatical accuracy were always important, from day 1 in a child's school career, there would be fewer mistakes to correct as they progress?
When I was at school (out of the UK), the first three years were mostly about spelling and grammar, the last two years of primary then focussed more on longer compositions, etc. It was fully expected that at the end of primary people would write correctly, without grammatical or spelling mistakes. The great majority of us did.
In the first three years of secondary school those with imperfect grammar and spelling had extra classes to get up to standard so that by the end (which at the time was also the end of compulsory schooling) all had reached the basic standard.
After all, even for the most basic job, accurate grammar and spelling are much more important than creativity...

Clothesofsand I don't get why the 23% of children being below average is funny either.

I guess it doesn't make sense mathematically.

However, as it refers to the fact that the average SATs grade in Year 6 is supposed to be Level 4b, and that 23% of children don't reach that grade, it makes sense to me.

A colleague and I were discussing this yesterday - we would like to see a chart of the standards falling plotted against the increase in interference from Ofsted and the introduction of SATS.......

If we could remove all the interference which tells us we have to do a, b, c, d etc in a lesson then maybe we would have time to actually teach!

Erm lequeen, it's reinforcing not reinforsing

I suggest that you read LeQueen's post again.
(The whole last sentence)

The list has been compiled by www.primary-teacher-uk.co.uk.

To be honest its irrelevant. Its probably a list of the spellings children are expected to know how to spell by that level, and as my DS already knows them we dont need the list. The point I was trying to make is that you cannot have good spelling in isolation - it needs to be enforced all the times. You cannot have children thinking they need to think about spelling right at certain times and that at other times its not important.

5foot5, and others who get it!

Come back here right now and explain the average misuse. Or you're staying in over break I'll have to start a Fred about a Fred.

Sui, how many 4 year olds do you know who can write in full sentences, using correct punctuation and spelling? Childrern are taught to aquire skills little by little in a systematic way, starting with one grapheme for each of the 44 (first) phonemes in YR and introducing more gaphemes in year one and two. Grammar is taught, beginning in Reception with capital letters and full stops and progressing through Primary school.

4b is the expected level

"Perhaps you should train to be a teacher. You may actually know what you were talking about then."

But do teachers actually know what they're talking about? Yes they've been trained, and swallowed their training hook line and sinker, but where is the evidence behind this training? Where are the studies that point to children becoming demoralised if spellings and grammar are corrected? Can anyone link to any?

You don't seem to get this argument in maths...

'You don't seem to get this argument in maths...'

not true

marking is a powerful teaching tool. Correcting all a child's mistakes is easily done but it is lazy teaching.

There are 2 issues her, I think.

Is there any proof that higher outcomes in the early years= higher outcomes on entry into Senior School or at school leaving age?

Does correcting childrens' spelling demoralise them?

I spoke to DD2 this morning. She went to a traditional prep, but one that did not follow the NC or do SATS. She remembers always having spelling corrected. However, until Year 2 they did very little written work, her time table was more than 50% outdoor play, music, drawing, crafts, drama and sport. I think there might be an argument for not disheartening Reception age children with corrections, but I would do it by 'avoiding' written work, rather than not correcting the mistakes when made.

How do other countries deal with spelling errors/grammatical mistakes?

Certainly in Asia they're not shy of the red pen.

I know all the research says spelling tests don't work as the words only go into the short term memory. If the words are regularly revisited surely they do work (shift to long term memory). This is what happens in other countries and it's effective.

Do we try to do too much & cover too much ground in the early years? I was struck by a private prep school in the States recently. Although they had ample resources IT didn't appear on the curriculum until the children were 9. The head to me that all children were computer literate anyway. He added there was not enough time to cover the basics as it was. A second language did receive a measure of priority though - daily exposure to French and Spanish.

Sorry, should read 'the head told me'.

I think Cortina they definitely correct, but there's less written work in the early years, so by the time they're facing corrected work a) they're more mature b) there are possibly fewer mistakes.