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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to expect correct spellings from adults teaching my 4 yr old in reception?

135 replies

ellasmum1 · 17/09/2007 22:00

I am by no means the best speller in the world, but my dd age 4.6 came home from reception class on friday with a picture she had drawn and an adult had written "I like fairys" underneath it.
I doubted myself and checked the dictionary but it should definately be "fairies".
I do not know if the adult concerned was the teacher or teaching assistant but I feel quite worried about this. What, if anything would you do?

OP posts:
NKF · 17/09/2007 23:08

This is very off topic but I would make a useless primary school teacher because I find children's mispellings so enchanting I'd never change them. I love their wonky handwriting as well.

Pinkchampagne · 17/09/2007 23:14

Teachers do have those blank moments, like we all can at times.

I have worked as a TA in a school for years, and the teachers I have worked with have at times checked a spelling out with me because they were having one of those moments, and I have sometimes double checked a spelling with them. We can all suffer a blank head moment!

I would always check if unsure though, and feel it is important not to make mistakes on childrens work, so can totally understand your concern.

emj23 · 18/09/2007 11:33

One of my primary teachers hated me because I would point it out when he made a spelling mistake. Once he wrote 'Aubergine' on the board when he meant 'Aborigine'

PondusLector · 18/09/2007 19:26

Sometimes a teacher makes spelling mistakes because they are doing so many things at once. Making sure that everyone is working well and effectively, hearing an individual child read, watching the clock, remembering all the different behaviour targets and IEP statements, keeping it in mind that children need reminding to have a drink, making sure that the differentiation is working three ways, doing all incidental classroom conversation in a foreign language and writing on work can make you a little bit distracted at times.

I once wrote "God boy" in a reading record. Luckily I noticed. Someone might have started a thread about me

bagpuss · 18/09/2007 19:29

Ah, this is nothing, one of dd's new teachers can't even spell her name....

MaryBS · 18/09/2007 19:41

I was rather irritated when DD got a note home asking her "to practice her spelling". I very nearly said something, but restrained myself! Then there was the number chart that went from 1 to 100, but a mistake had been made and there were 2 79s and no 89!

3andnomore · 18/09/2007 20:04

moondog...things or thinks ;)

3andnomore · 18/09/2007 20:08

oh and [thick emoticon]
what is wrong with this:
to practice her spelling

isn't that how you spell practice?

bagpuss · 18/09/2007 20:13

We had a discussion about practice and practise last night! ds1's teacher had used it - she was quite correct as I found out via dictionary.com.

MaryBS · 18/09/2007 20:13

practise is the verb, practice is the noun. It was hammered into me at school with a very large sledgehammer! So in the case I mentioned, it should have been practise

MaryBS · 18/09/2007 20:24

just wanted to add, in American English, practice is also the verb. Dictionary.com I believe is an American site?

See below for the British answer (patriotically waves flag):

www.future-perfect.co.uk/grammartips/grammar-tip-practise-practice.asp

noonar · 18/09/2007 20:25

'practise' is a verb- as in practise the violin. 'practice' is a noun- as in doctors' practice.

i am a teacher, too. i'd like to point out the difference between not knowing a spelling and making a clerical error. i admit that not knowing the rule for plural spellings is unlikely to be a clerical error.

agree with whoever said it was most likely to be the TA.

bagpuss · 18/09/2007 20:29

Ooh, thanks Mary, so dh and I were right ,

3andnomore · 18/09/2007 20:30

thank you for clarifying it....lol...well...at least I have a good excuse english isn't my first language...does that count [shifty emoticon]

NotADragonOfSoup · 18/09/2007 20:31

If you can't remember practise/practice verb/noun, think of advise and advice, it's more obvious which is which .

somersetmum · 18/09/2007 20:33

I have had to correct the spelling of words on ds's spelling list before now . It was a photocopied sheet in his teacher's fair handwriting.

oxocube · 18/09/2007 20:42

NFK, I'm kind of with you on this one. I think my spelling is generally pretty good. I look words up in a dictionary if they 'don't look right' but in a class of 25 five year olds, you simply don't have the time to ponder such things and mistakes can happen. Of course if a child was coming home every day with incorrectly spelled words or if the display writing up on the walls was full of mistakes, then it would have to be addressed. To be very honest, I think its a little odd to completely lose confidence in a choice of school because one teacher made one spelling mistake.

oxocube · 18/09/2007 20:44

NKF even .

VintageGardenia · 19/09/2007 07:09

YANBU. That happened to me with my DS's teacher who he had for 3 years. She was lovely, and a good teacher but the spelling drove me bananas. I'm absolutely anal about spelling (there are probably lots of typos in this message to shame me!) and it irritated me and initially made me lack confidence in her. It happened in letters home from the school as well. But wiser birds around me said don't say anything, just ignore it, and I'm glad I did, because me stomping in and acting all outraged and superior would probably have made his teacher feel bad, and she wouldn't necessarily have been able to do anything about it, plus it would have caused bad feeling between us. I do think spelling is difficult for some people. It was things like "X could of tried harder..." etc that really had me swallowing my tongue though, much more than the spellings. Or once, "I have moved X to sit imbetween Y and Z..." grrrr

VintageGardenia · 19/09/2007 07:10

Hmm. I wish the examples I'd remembered said things like "X is marvlous..." and "best child I've ever tought"

Twiglett · 19/09/2007 07:14

Fishes is actually an acceptable pluralisation

it occurs when one is discussing different types of fish .. so eg within one breed say Carp the plural is fish but when discussing carp and goldfish and loaches the plural would be fishes

oh and if you have a dwarfs / dwarves moment then don't worry about it .. both are acceptable

fairys aren't though and ne'er shall be

ggglimpopo · 19/09/2007 07:16

I refused a school nursery place for ds - the poster in the classroom had a picture of a scarf with SCARF written below. The picture of two scarves had SCARFS, not SCARVES, written below.

Having tuttily pointed out the error I went home and looked it up. Both are correct

Twiglett · 19/09/2007 07:19

ouch ggg

MaryBS · 19/09/2007 08:00

ggg

Its not just schools. Our intranet site at work had the word "apprentiships" in several places, on the front page , until someone pointed it out to them!

hotcrossbunny · 19/09/2007 09:33

Remember as well that some of the teachers coming into school now are the ones who were taught that grammar and spelling weren't important. So no wonder they're having problems

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