SPELLINGS GRRRR

[Rosefairy]

to expect not to have to correct the spelling mistakes in the spelling list issued by the Teacher before my child learns them. They weren't copied incorrectly by her either I checked.

[edam]

Mind you, I just put an extra word in there because I changed my mind as I was writing and forgot to delete it... (I'm not a teacher though!)

[thumbwitch]

ah but edam, doctors don't need to be able to spell though! Certainly not some of the ones that used to work in the hospital I worked in, anyway

[FattipuffsandThinnifers]

How depressing. And probably indicative of how things are going generally, post-computers (spellcheck should never have been bloody invented imo), mobile phones and the like.

[FattipuffsandThinnifers]

Arrrgghhh I meant off

I shall de-reg myself from MN this instant.

[NormaSknockers]

I'd be pretty cheesed off too

[KembleTwins]

My DTs used to go to a playgroup where staff would fill in a "Daily Dairy" at the end of the session, so parents knew what had been happening.

[edam]

were they smearing the children in butter?

[busybutterfly]

Was it in case they (yog)hurt themselves?

[busybutterfly]

I'd have been cheese(d) off too...

[edam]

Butterfly, you are really milking it now...

[UnquietDad]

Perhaps it was correctly spelled on the udder side?

[flopalong]

I am dyslexic and struggle with spelling, had a name change on here as someone shot me down on here the first night I was on by pointing out some bad spelling that had nothing to do with the discussion. I lost alot of confidence that had taken me years to build up (In one sentence) so changed my name. However if I were a teacher, I would carefuly, letter for letter copy spellings onto the board. Better still I would print them all off and have the children who finish their work early cut them up and stick them in the spelling books.
I am studying for a degree in early years though and assumed that childrens work should be tailored to the individual, not copied from a board by every child. (hope my spelling and punctuation doesn't offend anyone)

[WingedVictory]

This response is particularly to TheFallenMadonna, who mentioned being a secondary science teacher with a dyslexic colleague.

Dyslexia needn't be a bar to good and literate teaching. In fact, writing the key words on the board, and ONLY the key words (spelled properly, obviously), is a good way to ensure that pupils are listening rather than copying. It is the same principle as for a good PowerPoint presentation. Secondary pupils should know/be learning how to note-take properly, anyway.

And just to revert to those key words: they really must be spelled properly, as the pupils must be able to look up the terms afterwards and, God willing, reproduce them properly themselves. I'm sure the little darlings come up with enough "Single Celled Orgasms" [sic] ... without your helping them!

[WingedVictory]

Hi, flopalong, have just seen your post, and just wanted to say that I am sorry if I sound like a spelling and grammar fascist, which must be alarming given your early MN experience.

I do value good spelling and grammar, but we must all give space for mistakes such as typos (particularly when a mumsnetter is typing one-handed with a baby asleep in her lap, like someone whose posting I saw recently), dyslexia, and those for whom English is not a native language.

But teachers MUST present correct text, and newspapers SHOULD be proofed for spelling and for sense. Elsewhere, people should try to write as clearly as possible.

[drlove8]

im with you flop! i cant spell either . - but we all have our faults right? .

[cancantcan]

Can I just point out that without exception, higher education establishments require all work to be submitted TYPED, using word processor programs, all of which handily have spell check on them. How on earth are kids and young adults to be expected to know how to spell things, when they have probably never actually HAD to spell it?

I see the same thing in shops every day - nobody under the age of about 25 seems to know how to do simple maths without the assistance of a calculator. But what do we expect when they are allowed to have calculators in primary schools now FFS! When I was at school (some time before records began) the only time we had calculators was in trigonometry, and to work out circles etc, although we all could do it without the calculator at a push, it did speed things up.
It really brought it home to me one day when we had a power outage so the till wouldnt work in the corner shop, the shop assistant actually had to use a calculator to work out the change for 70p worth of sweets from the £1 I gave her. Tragic.

[busybutterfly]

Or perhaps your DC was just the cream of the crop?
(Hey edam, with your name maybe you should start a Daily Dairy too?!

[edam]

[pattilou]

Am I allowed to say that I've put a request about this topic in the media requests section? Just so you know it's there.

[slug]

The mantra when I was teaching is "We are all English teachers". If students consistently see wrongly spelt words, they assume that is the correct spelling. If only English teachers correct spelling and grammar, then the assumption is made that spelling and grammar only matter in English classes.

I have found that dyslexic teachers, as a group, are generally the most conscientious when it comes to this because they are always aware of their weaknesses. I see nothing wrong in a teacher asking students to check the work they have written on the board for spelling mistakes, it underlines the importance of checking your work. What really annoys me is the lazy ones who can't be bothered, or more irritatingly, feel it's not important.

[madusa]

the teacher that my son had last year never manages to use the correct "there/their"

shocking especially since she is also KS2 manager!

[Stayingsunnygirl]

I'm another one for the Prevention of Cruelty to Apostrophes Society.

Teachers are human and will make errors in spelling and punctuation from time to time - but I do think that anything that is going home from the school (official letters etc) should be gramatically correct, and properly spelled and puntuated. The spelling lists must be correct, otherwise the children could be learning the incorrect spelling.

Ds3's Year 4 class used to mark eachother's spelling tests. I only found this out when I looked at his spelling test book at Parent-Teacher evening, about half way through the year. He had been assuring me that he was learning his spellings and that he was getting good marks in his tests, so I decided (foolishly, in hindsight) to trust him.

When I looked through his spelling book, I found that the majority of his misspellings had been marked as correct! In fact, on one test, where he'd told me he'd got 18 out of 20, he'd actually only got two words right!! I don't recall the school being too worried when I pointed this out, either.