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

Still waiting, OP.

Problematic. There does seem to be a disconnect between what schools want to achieve with marking and what businesses hope to see in applicants.

Mrz
As ever, what you said is spot on.

Katisha, actually, I don't think there's much correlation needed between how you mark the work of a 6yr old and what is expected of an adult appying for a job. As I said earlier, not correcting my 5yr old's spelling of head as hed did not condemn her to be unable to spell the word at 6yrs let alone 18yrs.

But we are constantly told about the terrible spelling and general use of language in job/university applications, so it would imply that this is a problem throughout a child's school career.

Statistics for literacy are the same as the 1940s? I am truly shocked! On the other hand maybe I'm not...as I don't always believe everything I'm told.

Katisha- I can confirm your comment. My SIL recently told me she now returns her graduate students' essays with a request that they get someone else to proofread their work. At university level my SIL expects to be marking content not correcting basic punctuation and grammar.

Perhaps the difference being seen at university level/graduate entry level is more to do with the fact that 30yrs ago, only the most able children went to university and therefore their literacy levels were notably high. Now, we aim to send every child who can possibly manage whether it's the right environment for them or not.

Even if the literacy level is the same as the '40s, that is appalling. School is compulsory up to the age of 16 now, so everyone should have some level of literacy. My Dad left school when he was 14 years old in the '60s and was almost completely illiterate (I'm not saying that is typical but I know that he wasn't the only one to leave to leave before the age of 16) The literacy level should be better than that given the fact that education is compulsory for longer and that the law is much more stringent about attendance.

I agree with Mrz (again!)

Trends in standards of literacy 1948-1996 National Foundation of Educational Research Humourme.
Do your SIL's students not word process their work and use a spell checker either? Perhaps it is their ICT that needs to be improved.

monoid perhaps you didn't understand what I wrote (literacy levels )

Literacy levels have been more or less static since the 1940s
That means literacy levels haven't fluctuated greatly in the 40's 50s 60s 70s 80s 90s (when school leaving age was raised to 16)

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) 2009 report adult literacy levels in the UK as 99% which if my maths is correct is pretty high ...

Thank God for mrz!

What a ridiculous OP!

You can't have a blanket approach to marking spellings, you are wasting your time with the petition!

Phonics teaching in the earlier ears calls for children to spell incorrectly, it's a learning curve.

My ds is 6 and would be put off writing if every spelling corrected. He does use descriptive words that are sometimes spelt differently in the space of one piece of work. His spelling is 'plausible' and basic words usually spelt correctly. I trust that the teachers will start correcting his more ambitious words when he is ready.
My ds will occasionally ask if he has spelt something right and then I will tell him and some times he will say 'that's a silly spelling' - and with the English language he is usually right!

Maybe the don't-correct approach wouldn't be so bad if the children understood it. As it is, they think they can spell a word as it hasn't been corrected by the teacher and won't believe me when I tell them it's not spelt like that.

Oh, and when your child writes, in their spelling book, not creative writing book,
"brocolli, broccoli, brocoli"
and all three get a big tick - well, what can you say?

If there is such a disjunction between children's verbal and written skills then why are teachers asking children to write down their stories? Why not make creative story telling a verbal exercise? Learning how to write (forming letters) and how to spell should be a separate exercise.

Compare it to Maths: no way would you expect pupils to work out the area of a rectangle (a multiplication problem) without first knowing their times tables.

Spelling is a problem because they are trying to put the cart before the horse.

I've signed.

I will not be signing the petition. For several reasons, some of which have been covered alreads, such as the danger of stifling childrens' creativity.

My DD is 9yo and in a French school. She writes charming stories (in English) and I leave the spelling as it is, but chat to her about it. In each story, I correct a couple of the mistakes, and talk to her about grammar. To do more than this would prevent her from using such descriptive language.

I also think that if you are to present a petition, you really should put slightly more thought into it.

What age group are you talking about? From Reception? From P1? Not enough detail about what you want the government to actually change.

Research based findings are more likely to convince me than your university lecturer friend's opinion.

mrz I think I'm still missing something then. School wasn't compulsory up to 16 until 1972. Are you saying that the average person is as literate as an average person in the '40s? Or is it the average person at a certain stage in their education is the same as in the '40s? Please enlighten me, because I genuinely don't understand what you mean.

StopRainingPlease - that's exactly what gets my back up. dd doesn't believe me if I correct her spelling. I have found that the internet is my friend :) Although the teacher trumps me, the internet trumps the teacher

As an anecdotal aside I collate and have seen many, probably hundreds of WW1 letters and postcards sent by ordinary soldiers to loved ones at home. Many approach me and assume that their ancestor was unusually talented and educated as spelling mistakes are very unusual, they are very well written and the script is usually a beautiful copperplate or cursive. I imagine most had a rudimentary education and left school at 14. I'd go as far as to say I've yet to see a letter or postcard that suggests standards of literacy were low.

Mind you all they would have concentrated on were the 3Rs in their early years. No TV either etc.

Purits, it's not about putting the cart before the horse, it's about a slow but systematic learning of spelling whilst not holding everything back because of it. It would be very wrong to discourage a young child from using words like enormous and whispered simply because all they can spell is big and said. A 6yr old's mind is perfectly able to cope with the concept and meaning of enormous and whispered but not necessarily up to spelling them yet. Should that prevent them using those words creatively?

When our children are toddlers do we deny them things because their pronunciation isn't quite correct? No, we repeat the odd key word correctly and praise them. Most toddlers would feel bewildered and deflated if we continually told them, 'It's not doos it's juice!' and 'The word isn't ardan it's garden!'. They give us an entire slightly decipherable sentence and we pick out the main objective rather than correct everything they have said.

This same principle of their thought process being more advanced than their age related ability to accurately produce carries on throughout school.

Interesting stats Mrz but as they are not from one consistent test their results are open to interpretation. Where are the stats from 1997 onwards? This is the period that most of us on MN are interested; the here and now.

To be honest, even if you offered statistics from 1997 onwards that were spectacularly successful, I would not believe you. I have had three children in the state school system for that entire period and I have seen nothing but a continual decline in literacy skills. I would certainly rather trust my own judgement than any government statistic produced over this period.

ICT is a valuable tool for literacy, especially for proofreading, but I don't think it is any substitute for solid literacy knowledge. It frequently doesn't pick out homophones, missing words and doesn't correct poor sentence structure. My SIL told me that her students have a habit of just missing out words, especially conjunctions and definite articles - I suppose they think it's acceptable to send in their essays in text-speak.

I think there are many contributing factors to the decline in literacy that I've witnessed which go beyond what happens in the classroom. However, I do think the OP has a valid point. No one is suggesting every single spelling should be corrected at reception level or that corrections should stifle creativity, but I would suggest, for example, that my bright 10 year old could accept more corrections than his current school guideline of 3 spellings per piece of work. (This is only in literacy - other subject teachers are not obliged to correct spellings at all - only content.) I do think some teachers (and I do mean "some" not all) adopt a lackadaisical attitude when given directives such as these - instead of doing what is the most appropriate for each child.

I'm an academic (and not humourme's SIL!) - and I must say that some (not all) of the wordprocessed work that we get is badly written (spelling, grammar, punctuation etc). Emails are just as cringe-worthy. And this from a university that's not RG, but in the 20-30s ranking.

I don't think (correct me if I'm wrong OP) that the OP was suggesting that at reception year or the early years of schooling, the children get their worksheets back covered with red ink correcting their spelling/grammar. But when we're reaching the older years of primary school, surely children need to know that they are spelling incorrectly (and what the correct spelling is)? It is very difficult to read a badly written essay/email.

Humourme
The problem is, from both the OP and the linked petition, there is no clearly defined objective.

If the OP thinks that more emphasis should be placed on spelling in her DC's school then I would suggest she talks to other parents and arranges a meeting with the HT to discuss this.

Not post hastily and ill thought out petitions on a government website.

Sorry, OP. Nothing personal but imo, you will have to put a bit more thought into what you actually want to achieve with this petition. It is too vague.

There has to be a happy medium between correcting spelling and grammar, and stifling creativity. I believe that this should be left to the teachers to decide, and if you are unhappy with a particular teacher (or school) then take it up with them.

MmeLindor - I am in agreement with you that the petition isn't quite as clear as it could be but if it somehow opened up a debate in parliament on the subject of literacy, as it has done here on MN, that could only be a good thing:)

I sense the OP started the petition in a moment of frustration which I fully understand. I have been talking to teachers and schools about this very subject for years and, frankly, I have heard absolutely nothing that has been given me encouragement. Lots of talk but no action. It's incredibly depressing. This may be a hastily produced petition and probably won't produced the desired effect, but I'm opting for the "nothing ventured, nothing gained" option. Good luck OP:)