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

Teachers I think you don't need to be so defensive. I hope not anyway.

What should happen about the apparent disconnect between what the teaching profession think is going on in school and what parents believe is happening or not happening in their child's education?

Katisha, I was commending you for using the OP's tried and tested old fashioned method, which she swears blind is sooooo effective, to correct your mistake.

Apparently though mistakes are fine and, actually, don't even count if:

a) You are an OP making an opening post making a plea for others to sign a spelling petition.
b) You are still arguing with several experienced teachers and want to make a spelling mistake in a sentence about spelling mistakes.

AND - oh my good grief, Titbits - you have made another, different apostrophe mistake in the opening line of your petition!

I am guessing that's part - only part - of the reason you only have 14 signatures. The other reasons being the ludicrousness of your claims, re OFSTED and secondary schools.

Seriously, give it up now, OP.

OK, rant over.

I don't get wound up that easily usually. I think if the OP had been something like 'what do you think about the marking of spelling in schools?' rather than 'isn't this appalling, I've started a petition' teachers might have been slightly less defensive!

Well can we have that discussion then?
I am still interested in apparent gulf between parental expectation and teaching profession's intentions.

"Do you all try to tell your doctors how to do their job? Your solicitors? Your electricians? No?"

In the internet age, everyone is an expert on everything. Many doctors complain about patients walking into the surgery saying, "I have these symptoms, I have diagnosed it, I know the cure, please write me this prescription." Teachers are not alone in being held up to scrutiny. Besides, what's the logical conclusion of your argument - that teachers are beyond reproach?

Employers can see with their own eyes, every day, the outcome of not correcting the current generation on their written work. Spelling and grammar are poor and, worst of all, people don't care that it is so - see numerous postings to that effect on MN.
Poorly written CVs are the first in the 'reject' pile.

I don't get it either; I think it's partly because there are so many different factors in play: parents' own educational experience, the child's version of events, amount and quality of communication from the school, different teaching styles, changing teaching techniques, the media, the Government. All this compounded, of course, by the fact that people love their children and are very emotive about what happens to them. It's a thorny issue.

Sorry was replying to Katisha.

Purits, NOBODY has questioned the importance of spelling and accurate writing. It is super-important and we all know it.

This is making me tired. Reproach away

worst of all, people don't care that it is so - see numerous postings to that effect on MN.

On this very thread and the petition itself.

It certainly is thorny.
Another issue I have is with what looks to me like pretty average work by DS1 (and I know what he is capable of) being marked with "fantastic" or smiley faces or merit marks, when, to be honest, I would prefer to see him stretched.
Not ground down in the dust, but stretched and really encouraged to do more than just the average effort that he knows he can get away with.
(With which he can get away???)

purits I am gagging to know what your job is, so I can tell you exactly how you should be doing it, because I'm a parent don't you know, and that makes me an expert on everything

I'm off to bed. I've got to fail to meet the needs of teach a class of bouncy 6 year olds tomorrow....

Please point me in the direction of all the doctor/electrician bashing threads then, purits.

teacherwith2kids, I really like your story about recording that budding scientist. How wonderful that you were able to recognize and nurture that child's ability and how sad that some people think you should be only interested in correcting his spelling.

Apart from anything else it's obviously much more effective to concentrate on 2 or 4 key targets from a piece of work rather than 94. Same with anything else.

It's certainly an example of inspired teaching. But I don't think it has to be EITHER inspirational/creative OR soulless drilling of grammar and spelling in the general run of things.

Too simplistic a distinction.

I still think the general run of pupils are not being required to be disciplined enough about their writing and I include my own DSs in that. Particularly when they are older.

in AIBU
another AIBU
have I made my point, do I need to find more?

As to my profession: people have a pop at it all the time. It is the sort of job that you can make lazy, unoriginal jibes about. Water off a duck's back.

The more I think about the OP, the more bizarre I find it.

Why are you petitioning the government OP? I don't believe the NC dictates how schools should mark spelling. When I taught Secondary English, it was a departmental matter.

It sounds as though you've spoken to the school about it but if you don't like their approach, why not take it further? Are you on the board of governors? The PTA?

If you don't have any luck with that, then you could try looking for a different school where your DCs' spelling will be marked more stringently. But I don't think you'll easily find one. If, as I suspect, you find that this is a widespread approach to marking spelling, could that be because there are good reasons for it? Could it be that schools are responding to the relevant research and their own experience in determining how they are to teach and assess progress in literacy?

Are you a traffic warden purits?

@ Olifin. How very dare you!
I have more self respect than that, I'll have you know.

I am not an English teacher, so have many objectives other than spelling in any written task I give out. I am likely to have taught key terms or useful vocabulary for the task, and expect these to be spelled correctly. What I am marking though will depend on the objectives, there will be different "success criteria" for each task. This is as it should be, and strangely I'm not going to deviate from all the professional training I've had in recent years to red-penning eveything, because a couple of parents think I should! I actually have your children's best interests at heart, you know.

I do not agree OP I am a terrible at spelings. I had my spelings corrected with a red pen all my life it made no difference to what I could spell, I didnt look at the actual corrections and make a mental note for the future.

What I missed out on was the teaching of sound blending etc. It is now that my dd who is probably G&T has gone through reception and now entering Y1 that I have actualy learned the sound blends etc that lead to correct spelling.

I am sometimes embarrased when my dd who is 5 asks me to spell operation, for instance and Im unsure if it has 1 or 2 ps in it, by the time I have worked it out she has also . With constant corrections it does not teach the child to proof read for them selfs or think for them selfs, turn off the spell check on the pc etc. my dd gets very wound up and upset if she gets any spellings wrong, I would far rather she learns how to get herLs the correct way around through thinking for hwr self than missing that out and beating herself up she has not spelt operation correctly. It is important to make the basic corrections aswell as encourage children to make self correction.

Well said Iggi

And the OP should know that even in English at Secondary, there will be different success criteria for different pieces of work. Sometimes this will be spelling, grammar and punctuation. Sometimes it will be vocabulary or sentence structure or creative use of the language. This is as it should be because literacy and English aren't the same thing and, in my humble opinion, it is a good thing that different students can and do experience success in different tasks. I've marked work from kids with a brilliant insight into Shakespeare or Orwell who can't spell for toffee. If the assessment focus is their ability to interpret what they're reading and comment on the author's craft, then spelling can take a back seat for the time being.

Have signed - but you might want to check the grammar in your petition - there are a couple of missing apostrophes.....

I don't use red pen when I mark my Y4s' work... I use green . Unless the learning objective of a piece of writing was 'I can spell every word in a piece of writing correctly' (which it wouldn't be), then I wouldn't seek to identify/correct every spelling error. Usually I identify a couple of incorrect words that I'd like a child to look up in the dictionary and to then correct in their own work and three or so that I will have corrected for them. The children then copy all corrected versions into a spelling book and take it home for their parents to help them practise.

Yes, spelling is important but if I were to correct every single spelling mistake made by every single member of my class, in every single piece of writing they did, on every single day that they did it then there would be no time left in the day for me to plan/resource any lessons never mind see my own children/eat/shower/sleep.

FWIW, the children in my classes don't tend to leave my class unable to spell. They leave with a passion for using adventurous words, knowing how to use a dictionary and with the confidence to express their ideas in writing.

Your approach sounds good SE13Mummy. I would be happy with that.

well done SE13Mummy, having had you as a teacher I would not have been the 13 yr old who felt inferior, to the girl who at 35 has been to university, is now a heroin addict with 4 children and on benifits and my self at 35 who has held down a ft job since the age of 17 and only now going to university.

I am not judging that girl she has been a very dear friend always close to my heart, however It does prove that spelling does not maketh the person.

'Scary - I'm not sure how teachers will know if a student is dyslexic or not.'

At Secondary, it should be noted on the SEN register, and teachers will have that info in their markbooks. I always had that info given to me at the start of the academic year and marked accordingly for that child.