Do you judge others if they can't spell?

[Zoesmama]

For some, spelling is easy; they learn fast, assimilate words quickly, spell well. While for others, they find spelling hard; learn other topics well but English spelling remains incredibly tricky.

Which camp do you fall in to?

If you are one of the lucky ones who can spell well and 'just learned it', then well done. English spelling isn't easy. There are lots of irregularities and strange rules to learn.

If you are someone who found it difficult to learn to spell at school, then you are not alone. Close to one third of children leave school with a shakey grasp on spelling. This really can and does affect confidence and employment opportunities and leads to problems down the line when you have children and you need to home school them through a pandemic!

I'd love to know your thoughts on spelling.
How difficult did you find phonics lessons in lockdown?
Did you struggle to explain why some words have the 'i before e except after c' rule and some don't (there are 15 exceptions to that particular rule).

If you can spell well, do you judge others for not spelling well?

I do judge - as a very good speller myself - but I have a teenage DD who cannot spell at all......pain everyday - and it has taught me that it has nothing to do with intelligence.

I don't judge individuals but I do judge educational fashions and systems.

I’m a teacher and I only judge us when people (without specific difficulties which is different ) can’t spell! I can’t abide hearing colleagues moaning about parents who can’t spell, forgetting it was the teachers’ job to teach them that skill in the first place.

I don't judge out loud, but I do notice spelling mistakes. (Carefully checks post for spelling mistakes)

Tbh it depends on the word being misspelt, my spelling isn’t perfect, but if I see someone repeatedly spell an easy word wrong or using the wrong word then I do assume they’re less intelligent.

Yes, I do. Whenever I come across a post on a message board with severe spelling and grammatical errors on I automatically assign less weight to the author's opinion than I would if it were spelled correctly. Same if it ends with "x".

My thinking used to be along the lines of: "I learned English as a second language and can spell OK (or have the awareness that I might be misspelling something and look it up), why can't native speakers do it?". Now that I'm a parent to a child going through the English educational system I've started to realize that learning English as a second language was probably an advantage.

I had to learn to spell as a teenager (English is my second language). It was bloody hard slog as the rules are so contradictory and nothing like my native language, which is more "regular" in its spelling rules. It is nothing to do with intelligence, but it does require persistence. So yes, I do subconsciously judge the native speakers who can't spell as lazy, sorry. I've had to put the hard yards in to learn your language, so why didn't you when it's your mother tongue? I wouldn't voice it though, because I then argue with myself that it could be due to something I can't understand. But my first (gut) reaction is "I had to do daily drills to learn this, for years, and you just can't be arsed." Especially with "could of" instead of could've, the apostrophes and the bought vs brought confusion.

I don't judge as I know two awful spellers and I also know their circumstances. DH is one, he's dyslexic but also a professor of nuclear chemistry, so clearly not a reflection on his intelligence. The other is a friend whose literacy overall is poor, but I know she spent her childhood in and out of children's home with ongoing violence when back with her parents. It's a miracle she got any education.

No because although I'm well educated to post grad level I'm dyslexic. Spelling and grammar aren't a huge issue for me in the way they are for some dyslexic people and I worked quite hard to get better with it. But I understand that people have lots of readons they mis spell something or not notice a typo. I also feel grammar evolves and I'm not sadly pedantic about its use.

@HaloeVera

I do judge - as a very good speller myself - but I have a teenage DD who cannot spell at all......pain everyday - and it has taught me that it has nothing to do with intelligence.

Yet you still judge?

It makes me sad to read this, DD is dyslexic and her spelling is atrocious. Very bright but no amount of practice will keep spellings in her head. I understand the temptation to judge but it isn’t always stupidity, laziness or bad teaching.

Spelling comes naturally to me. I didn't do any phonics teaching in lockdown but am quite familiar with it as we moved country when DS was just 5 so I continued his nursery phonics from then on and started him off reading. I then used it as an English teacher. There are a lot of American phonics resources online and they teach the letter sounds in a different way which can be confusing.

No, I didn't struggle with explaining the ie before e rule, because I haven't taught it that way. It's confusing and not particularly helpful. Actually ie/ei is the one spelling issue that tends to trip me up, I think because in phonics, ie and ei can both make several different sounds, many of which are interchangeable.

ie can make all these sounds:

pie - eye
piece - ee

ei can make these sounds:

neighbour - ay
Eileen - eye
ceiling - ee

e i or i e can also be two sounds stuck together - and since e can be eh, ee or schwa (uh), and i can make ih, eye, ee or schwa, again you can get several combinations which sound the same. For example, weird. (ee-uh)

When it's clear what each sound is and you couldn't reverse it, you generally won't get the spelling wrong and so you don't need the rhyme.

Being - you couldn't write bieng - that couldn't be pronounced bee-ing, because e never makes ih. Likewise, nieghbour says nee-bour because ie doesn't make the sound ay.

But weird could be spelt wierd, ceiling could be cieling, pie pei, and so on.

If ei is making an ei sound, or an e is making an eh next to an i or an i is making an eye or ih sound next to an e, you generally won't misspell it.

When an ee, eye or schwa sound is present misspelling is likely.

I don't judge people for bad spelling but it does jar because it looks and sometimes sounds wrong in my head.

My spelling has always been quite good but I think it just came from reading a lot.
It’s hard to improve spelling from just reciting the correct letters in words.
I don’t judge anyone for being bad at spelling. They could be excellent at maths, be dyslexic or just had been failed by the education system.
I would think that Reading was the key to improving spelling.

Vive la difference!

Not excessively, and I don't get all indignant over obvious typos but sometimes I read an email or text and I am gobsmacked that an adult actually wrote it. Don't get me started on text speak.

Thank you to everyone who has commented and thank you for your candour. My daughter is 11 and she has always found spelling easy, however my nephew, 16, has struggled for many years.

I write for The English Spelling Society and they are keen to raise awareness of the problems inherent in our irregular spelling system. The Society was set up in 1908, with money from philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. The Society has lots of members around the world, some of whom have created alternative spelling systems. There are currently six proposals up for debate on their website. The proposals would make spelling easier for some. The Society would appreciate ANY and ALL feedback on the systems:spellingsociety.org/iesc-papers

I have attached a couple of jpeg examples - and await your feedback!

Spell checkers are useful - they're not the answer every time but they do help a great deal

I have a DC who is dyslexic but the schooling didn't help.

We thought DH had bad writing and he was one of the generation who felt "thick" at English as he struggled with writing and spelling at school and was put in special classes. He was a whizz at maths though and speaks well.

However we can't believe how much worse my son's writing is.

I only judge it in a professional context or if something came home from school because I expect people to know that their spelling is dodgy and to check. If you are aware your spelling is poor and you can't be bothered to check then I am unlikely to bother to do whatever you are asking.

I'm more lenient on Mumsnet etc as long as the point gets across I don't think it's the end of the world.

I find spelling easy, but I read a lot as a child and I've got a good memory so I know how words look right and when they don't look right. Hasn't had quite the same benefit for my grammar sadly

Some people just can't spell. My bright 9 year old can't spell for toffee but he can solve a maths problem in seconds and is a voracious reader.

However, if you are aware you can't spell (and I guess adults are aware) and you post or publish something without caring to check it then I will perhaps judge. Especially in a professional capacity. There are realms of tools to check your spelling.

I just don't see this happening op.

Tbh English is now multi national and used as an international language. It is not a centrally controllable language as German and French may be. (I was sorry to hear the umlaut had been culled in German!)

I can spell perfectly, but my brain can't do anagrams. I also have perfect pitch but can't understand spoken instructions, or can't follow them. I think I have undiagnosed ASD.

I would never judge anyone for being unable to do something! It's all part of a spiky profile; we all have strengths and weaknesses (because we require diversity of ability at a population level!).

As someone who got sent to spelling lessons by my tutor at university, I do sometimes judge people who make spelling mistakes. The spelling lessons made buggger all difference, but I try to make sure I don't make mistakes by typing everything I need to write. Incidentally, typing has definitely improved my spelling as I am immediately alerted when I make a mistake by the wiggly red line, I then correct it and in doing so reinforce the correct spelling by seeing it on the screen. If I had wrote everything, it would be a nightmare.

They're too small to read properly, but generally I'm not a fan of spelling reforms as I just don't think there's much need for it, they tend not to account for accents, plus it erases some of the history of our language. Phonics is an easier way to teach spelling than inconsistent rules.

The umlaut is very much still in use in German! But there are now alternative spellings in case you don't have umlaut characters accessible on your keyboard, or for use (for example) in web/email addresses.

If you want to type ü, write ue. If you want to type ä, ae. ö is then oe.