to want my child's teacher to understand how apostrophes work!!!

[intothenever]

DD is writing things like 'She live's in a house' and has been taught that the plural of potato is potato's! I am getting really pissed off!

And yes. When children are first taught about apostophes they do usually start to go a bit mad with them, sprinkling them all over their work whenever they sport a word ending in s. Most learn not to fairly quickly, some take a little longer.

Of course, if a teacher has corrected a SPAG in a child's work incorrectly then this is not good. If t is a one off it may just be a slip. If regularly it is more of a concern.

I agree Hulababy!

(Despite my embarrassing mistakes at the beginning of this thread!)

I know how grammar and punctuation work, and can spot it in children's work, but it is easy to make the odd mistake yourself! (especially when typing quickly in response to someone's post!)

...And now I am terrified of making further mistakes in my posts...I keep re-reading to make sure...but now I'm not confident!

What gets me is the constant assertion that teaching methods are better now when they clearly aren't. Years ago we didn't have swathes of youngsters leaving school without this basic knowledge as we do nowadays. When I see the standard of work displayed on walls (we assume because it was thought to be exceptionally good) it makes me very sad. What a cruel waste of all those years of education when we have teenagers and young adults who can barely string a sentence together. And it goes right through the system. How on earth can someone get as far as university and teacher training without someone pointing out that they haven't got a clue?

Er, the UK doesn't have appalling standards of literacy.

It's bang-on the OECD average.

While it's true that Ireland, for example, has a higher standard of literacy, it's also not a very fair comparison. The UK has a much higher proportion of ESL students, and students whose parents may not speak much or any English.

There was never a golden age of widespread knowledge of the written rules of the prestige dialect of British English (or any other dialect). Ever since spelling and grammar began to be standardised, people have struggled with the rules and bemoaned others' ignorance.

What gets me is the constant assertion that teaching methods are better now when they clearly aren't. Years ago we didn't have swathes of youngsters leaving school without this basic knowledge as we do nowadays.

What? That is exactly what we had.

The older the generation, the higher the rate of illiteracy.

Those swathes of youngsters didn't leave school misusing apostrophes. They left school much younger than they do now, unable to read and write at all.

Interestingly, about 75% of year 6 children achieved Level 4 in the SPAG test last year.

Of course, it was the first one.

Pixel - work on the board is not usually chosen because it is exceptional good - not in my experience anyway. We place work on the classroom and hall ways from a wide range of pupils, with a wide range of abilities. We do not exclude any child, and definitely don't only chose the best - that would not be very inclusive.

General education standards ARE better than in the past. That is for the majority of children. In the past we may have had those at grammars achieving very high - but what about those who were not staying on for exams at all, leaving before them to go into work, or those who simply didn't go. For the masses, schools are doing a better job overall in a far wider range of subject areas. But teaching methods and curriculums changes all the time - the whole strict grammar teaching has been in and out of fashion on and off over the years. this is why many older people have far better SPAG skills than those in their 20-30s. And now we have returned to more detailed grammar - so it will change again.

I cannot see any teachers in this thread claiming that it is elitist to encourage correct SPAG. I still cannot remember a thread where a teacher claims this, although accept that others have been in here for longer than me or spend more time than me so know better.

I also have not seen any teachers saying that they should not learn or refresh their grammar.

It's a serious mistake to assume that work on a school noticeboard is there because its exceptionally good! So only the top 10% would ever get their work on the board? Always the same, predictable ones? How demoralising would that be for little Kyle who sees 2 sides of neat A4 from his peers time and time again when he can only manage 3 or 4 lines and that's a real struggle? Valuing each child and each child's individual progress is very important, which takes us back to the idea of NOT over correcting their work so they think "why did I bother?" when something they were proud of ends up absolutely covered in red ink!

Those swathes of youngsters didn't leave school misusing apostrophes. They left school much younger than they do now, unable to read and write at all.

That's absolutely true.

But I bet you that fifty years ago, people with first degrees from Redbrick universities could write accurate English. A lot of people with first degrees from Redbrick universities now can't. It would be unlikely that someone with a two year Cert Ed would have been unable to use a comma or a semi-colon accurately, now it's apparently perfectly acceptable for people with three year B Eds to be unable to spell.

Your point about rates of literacy in society in general is accurate: illiteracy was invisible, marginal literacy is today visible. But the standards of education amongst school teachers themselves are shockingly low, and the excuses trotted out as to why allegedly educated people are incapable of buying, reading and taking in a basic grammar are pretty thin.

I teach a humanities subject and have been struck when checking reports how noticeably weaker the SPAG of maths/science/games teachers is. Nothing, I'm sure, to do with intelligence, just day-to-day use and practice.

I was just wondering - what is that literacy test like that student teachers have to do?

Any samples on-line?

I would love to know how easy/difficult it is.

www.education.gov.uk/schools/careers/traininganddevelopment/professional/b00211208/literacy/practice-literacy

www.education.gov.uk/schools/careers/traininganddevelopment/professional/b00211208/literacy/practice-literacy

I've just taken the literacy test. I took 18 minutes and passed. The punctuation test is shit, because it capitalises vast numbers of nouns that shouldn't be capitalised (Accident Report Form, Headteacher's Secretary) and you get bogged down in worrying about that.

I posted earlier upthread. My A'level English teacher, probably about ten years older than we were at the time, made a point of telling us she'd scraped an E in her own English A'level... I have no idea how she got the job. WTF was that about?! She was appalling, couldn't spell, had no idea about grammar and my A'level German teacher encouraged me not to bother attending her lessons...

General education standards ARE better than in the past. That is for the majority of children. In the past we may have had those at grammars achieving very high - but what about those who were not staying on for exams at all

My mum left school at 15 and she has a very good grasp of SPAG. It definitely wasn't a grammar, she lived in what is now seen as a very deprived area where the bus drivers sometimes refuse to go at night. The family lived on what my grandad could grow/raise on his smallholding and money from casual labour, they were not privileged at all. Thanks to her I could read before I started school. And my dh, he left school at 14 having grown up in the care system. There is nothing wrong with his SPAG either and his maths certainly puts me to shame, though he had never taken an exam in his life until recently.

My DD aged 7 wrote "I like to sing hims " & the TA corrected it to "hyms"!

I passed the test (phew)
But I only got 10/15 on the punctuation, and I couldn't return to see what the right answers were. It was a poor test, because, for example, when the letter should have been a capital, I changed the a to and A and I think you were supposed to write the A next to it? Instructions were poor. Didn't approve of the random capital letters either.

I was a bit shocked by the grammar section. If you can't work out most of those, then you can't speak properly, and given that the section is multiple choice, all you have to do is read the options and the right one really should be obvious.

I passed and I didn't bother reading the comprehension articles (because it's late and I should be in bed!). I just went on gut feel for those sections.

I'm a primary teacher.

If I were told not to correct my child's home writing lest it dent her confidence I would NOT be happy!! I cannot believe someone would say that!

That is possibly because your child is doing very well with her writing. Very few 4 and 5 yos can write much at all, and there are children quite a bit older (some of whom go on to do perfectly well at 16, 18, 21...) who won't write much more than a couple of sentences.

If correcting every minor mistake (because at 5 a misplaced comma is as minor as it gets) works for your child then fine; just be aware that it doesn't work for most people (of any age).

No one can tell you what to do in your own home so relax. My understanding is that at reception age they start by writing phonetically and that is fine by me. It seems logical to me as that way they are learning one step at a time and gaining confidence. But there is more than one way to do everything. I didn't want dd to learn writing before she started school so she is probably currently at more of an average level right now, meaning the way it is taught is working for her.