Aibu to correct spelling in 7 year olds creative writing

[Norfolker]

Dd has started doing creative writing in her spare time. Her stories are really descriptive & entertaining with the odd spelling mistake. Would i be unreasonable to correct this or would it cramp her creativity to harp on the spelling aspects ?!

Mad that you wouldn't.
Learning to spell is important.

Why don't you just ask her if she wants you to check her spelling or not?

I lecture in the subject at university.

My advice would be don’t correct her spelling in fun, self-started work. Celebrate her writing, give her positive feedback, and then maybe ask her if she would like any help with any of the words, or invite her to type up her favourite stories on the computer to use spell check. Alternatively, get her a children’s thesaurus and dictionary and teach her how to use it so she can expand her vocabulary.

It’s so frustrating seeing young people unable/unwilling to experiment with language because they are fearful of being wrong.

It is marvellous that she’s doing this for fun - keep it that way! If you spot that she has misspelled a common or important word, make a note of it and then teach the correct spelling in a different context and at a different time. Use her creative writing as a resource for you but detach the error correction from the act of writing creatively.

What BlackCatShadow said.

No. Don't. Don't correct anything about it just be very specific about what you admire about it. It's very important to be unhampered by 'getting it right' when writing for pleasure.

She'll probably stop asking you to read it, or worse, stop writing it.

Noooo don’t !

Just ask
‘Your stories are amazing, I love reading them. Would you like me to help you with spelling, or is it better to practice spelling at another time?’
My kids are different. One it would upset them a lot, the other would value it. I bet she has an opinion.

@Notanotherusernamenow

I lecture in the subject at university.

My advice would be don’t correct her spelling in fun, self-started work. Celebrate her writing, give her positive feedback, and then maybe ask her if she would like any help with any of the words, or invite her to type up her favourite stories on the computer to use spell check. Alternatively, get her a children’s thesaurus and dictionary and teach her how to use it so she can expand her vocabulary.

It’s so frustrating seeing young people unable/unwilling to experiment with language because they are fearful of being wrong.

It is marvellous that she’s doing this for fun - keep it that way! If you spot that she has misspelled a common or important word, make a note of it and then teach the correct spelling in a different context and at a different time. Use her creative writing as a resource for you but detach the error correction from the act of writing creatively.

Thanks so much for this reply. She's a perfectionist so my fear would be that she would choose easier words that she knows she can spell instead of picking the complicated word she's unsure of spelling DH thinks that making an issue of the spelling will cramp her creativity. Her grammer & punctuation is great..

Does she give it to you and ask you to look at it or do you mean getting it out on your own and correcting it?

If she asks you could you just ask her if she'd like you to correct any misspelled words too?

If she's not asking your opinion I'd leave well alone. Creative writing is important, she's learning about spelling enough in other part of her education. If you criticise something that's not actually the point of the exercise then she'll just feel crap about it and not enjoy it and not bother doing it anymore.

No it will tarnish her new found passion.

As she gets older and reads more and the learning she does in school will help.
The most importnant thing in this she is writing for fun and using her creativity and language skills. If you want to encourage correct spelling maybe but her a phone or an electronic spelling tool to help for her to use at her own pace, you can get little devices that looks like pens, my son has used them for his dyslexia.

No. I had this with DTs, and on the advice of the teacher it was a resounding no in anything they are doing for 'fun'. They were at the time both query dyslexia though so didn't want to do anything to stifle their joy of writing. The spelling has just clicked now at ten.

My kids are in an IB school and in the early read / write years we were discouraged from correcting spelling for all the reasons you say. From about Grade 1 (year 2) DD was given a few spellings from each piece to revise. Her vocabulary did contract at that point but only temporarily.

Sometimes with children who are fearful I ask them to use the word and then use a wiggly line to show me they don’t think or aren’t sure if they got that spelling right. It helps them gain confidence in getting spellings ‘wrong’ as it doesn’t matter, ensures I know what they think they’re getting wrong - as opposed to other words or letter chains they should know and are getting wrong - and also means we have a focus to check those words at another time.

I always always comment on content and effect first. I find that otherwise children become writers by number and are able to spell and include particular things they’re taught but oh my goodness it’s boring. Being a writer first and foremost is about impact on your audience imho. I try and teach that to the children in my class anyway!