Correcting spelling mistakes in schools

[Titbits]

Please help...I have started an epetition on the governments website.
My local primary school tells me that they don't correct all my children's spelling mistakes because too much red pen is discouraging! Surely it would be better to focus on ENcouraging them to spell correctly...and making them feel proud of their work?
Ofsted are actively promoting this approach even though friends in further education and the business world tell me that they throw away any applications from students with poor spelling.
It seems that in secondary school, spelling errors aren't corrected at all.
Call me old fashioned (!) but copying out a spelling mistake three times at the bottom of the page was how I improved my spelling. Weekly spelling tests seem irrelevant if the children then aren't taught to use the correct spelling in a body of text.

Hope you will help..enough names will mean it's discussed in Parliament. Link below:

epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/10821

mrz I agree with much of what you write, and take the point about people making applications for areas that in former times they may not have had access to.
But - I still think it's dangerous to say a spell checker should sort it out for you and you are lazy not to use it. People have got to know how things work for themselves, and it appears that too many don't. And don't care. And their education is not ensuring it.

Also wonder about all these parents who shift all responsibility for spelling and education in general to their child's teachers.

In any case where a child is having difficulty spelling the parents are just as responsible and probably more than their teachers. It is as much a life skill as learning how to eat properly or communicate orally.

Oh - so as a parent then a) you are not a trained educator and should not interfere and b) it's your fault for not doing it yourself anyway.

Katisha, it wasn't me who said that stuff about not interfering and I would also find that patronising.

Most teachers are parents too.

Many parents overestimate what teachers can and should do and underestimate what they can and should do as parents.

And I'm not in the business of blaming individual parents. There are social problems at work which make it very difficult for parents and teachers to do their jobs as effectively as they might.

Katisha I think you are missing my point.
If you are seriously applying for a position you would be foolish not to check your form and covering letter. In the good old days people used a dictionary the spell check is today's equivalent. No matter how good a speller you are always double check (it may be a simple typing error ) then get someone to read it to triple check.

Especially when you are writing a speech to persuade people to sign a petition about spelling.

Maybe if, even for just a few hours a week, TVs, laptops and games consoles went off and we actually encouraged children to read we would see some benefit. It always upsets me that so many pupils (2ery) refuse World Book Day tokens/free books and wont take part in reading events and, when asked, can't remember the last time that they actually read a book for fun.

2ary, surely?

Yes true Mrz, but I still think it is the case that school leavers may not know enough about how to write properly in the first place. Why is this? What has changed in educational practice that this should be a much-remarked upon problem? Is education really concentrating on the right things - education like anything else has trends and fashions.

Fivecandles I agree, but seems to me that some of the teachers on this thread seem to either want to indulge in tit for tat about people's typos and errors or else to basically say that any questioning of their practice is teacher-bashing. It's plain to me that general standards of writing are not what they could be and I wonder whether the other things that are taking priority are in fact the right things to prioritise.

For example, years ago, maybe the 70s, learning times tables fell out of favour. My mother was a teacher and continued to teach them, against the prevailing trend as she felt that pupils were at a great disadvatage without them. They are now back in favour. Could it be that we need to look again at what is taught in literacy, especially as the children get older?

And finally, while I have my issues with the wording and scope of the petition, and haven't signed up, I don't actually think it is made ridiculous by having a couple of punctuation errors - if anything it illustrates the point.

If even the OP of the petition doesn't think that proofreading to correct grammatical errors are of any importance whatsoever, then how does that illustrate a point? I don't think that's anything to do with tit for tat - either spelling and grammar are improtant, or they aren't, you can't mix up that message in either a spelling petition or an OP of a thread asking people to sign it.

Nor have any teachers said that any questioning of their practice is teacher bashing - plenty of comments have been made about the sheer number of those posts compared to anything else.

important!

It illustrates the point that people don't actually know how to spell and punctuate.

Well maybe it's me, but I detect more of a desire to quibble and point score rather than discuss the meat of the issue - are we getting it right in our current approaches in education? Yes OK we don't want to stifle creativity in pupils but at what point should the emphasis also be placed upon accuracy and disciplined work?

As I've said before - there does seem to be a disconnect between what happens in schools and what employers, FE teachers and indeed many parents hope to see at the end of a child's school career.

I really must leave this alone now!

It also illustrates the point that many people cannot be bothered and do not see it as important. It seems to be a culture thing around texting/iPads/emails.

I've had applications from NQTs who think it's fine to use lower case 'i' to refer to themselves all the way through the application.

Then who is going to tell them?

Katisha, I agree that spelling and general accuracy and expression is not always what it should be. I do not agree that this is in any way the fault of teachers nor that if teachers corrected every single spelling mistake it would improve matters. In fact I think it would be largely counterproductive. I think you need to think much more widely about the ways attitudes and society have changed and I think you need to think much more about parental responsibility.

For example, I think because of technology and so on, there is much less value placed on the written word and there is much more blurring of speech and writing and formality and informality for example through multi-modal forms of communication like texting and chatting online as we are doing.

I also think parents are less willing or able to do the sorts of traditional things that they used to that made all the difference to children's literacy starting with singing and reading.

I do wonder how many of the parents who complain that teachers cannot miraculously alter their children's communication skills in the limited time they spend with them, actually spend enough time with them themselves not just on formal homework but talking and writing.

And there are so many distractions for children now. I think parents reach for the computer, xbox, gameboy etc far too quickyl and then wonder why their children don't read.

I think if parents sang and read to their children every day and talked and encouraged their own reading and limited computer time and television and actually provided role models themselves it would have a million times more effect than anything at all that teachers could do.

And times are changing too. How many of us ever hand write anything any more? And yet this is how children are examined.

fivecandles:
"In any case where a child is having difficulty spelling the parents are just as responsible and probably more than their teachers. It is as much a life skill as learning how to eat properly or communicate orally."

I (parent, not teacher) can spell very well thank you. I even spent several years writing dictionaries! However, despite this, my children seemed to think the teachers' word was law and would not believe my spellings over the teachers until they were about 9 or 10, even when I backed it up with a dictionary.

Plus, I would really prefer not to have to undermine my kids' teachers.

Oh and my kids are both prolific readers but this has not made them great spellers.

katisha - teachers did not stop teaching times tables. What changed was that they were no longer taught solely by rote, the reason being that for some children (e.g. such as children with dyslexia/dyscalculia/working memory difficulties) times tables cannot be learned using that method.

This is a great debate. All angles covered on spelling. Does the move towards
heavy TEXTING by the young have an impact on spelling? ( I nearly wrote heavy petting.) Sorry about that.

I think Katisha mentioned apostrophes etc. I am not very good at some punctuation. A bloke in my county (John Richards) formed an Apostrophe
Society.....

George Bernard Shaw, a talented show-off, wrote his early books without apostrophes. It looks very odd when you first see it. I think old GBS left some money in his will for ???? Was it phonetic spelling? (I wonder what happened to the money.?)

GBS would have been great on Chat Shows. No one else would get a word in

What changed was that they were no longer taught solely by rote, the reason being that for some children (e.g. such as children with dyslexia/dyscalculia/working memory difficulties) times tables cannot be learned using that method.

actually I will alter that (before I get picked up on it!) as it's not correct - learning times tables (for example) solely by rote is a slow, time consuming and a narrow method. In addition some children (such as children with dyslexia/dyscalculia/working memory difficulties) will not be able to learn their times tables at all using that method.

we certainly chanted tables when I was at school; but on reading. I really cannot remember how I was taught. It was a long time ago

yes I was taught by chanting also - a very, very long time ago!

I do think texting plays a part chill. My daughter left primary level 6 literacy and a reasonable/good speller and now her spelling is atrocious.

I agree - I also think that texting has a negative effect on spelling