teaching your child after they come home from school

It's called lazy teachers. Kids need to be taught the proper way and not the "internet" way to write and spell. They reported on the news ages ago about how today's children are abbreviating things and writing in a way that is not of the norm yet teachers do nothing.

OMG, I have a 13 year old brother who always spells "come" as "cum" on his facebook statuses. I'm like...dude...do you KNOW what that spelling refers to? Because our MOM is your facebook friend, yo.

Well, I think it depends where you live, the subject and/or material, and what grade the students are in. I'm a teacher, and when I taught 5th grade I definitely marked things wrong if a word was misspelled in Spelling (obviously...) or took off points in a final copy of an essay, but if they spelled something wrong when writing an answer for a Social Studies question or Science packet, the spelling wasn't as important. The only time I would mark something wrong for a subject other than Spelling was if the word was in a word bank at the top of the page, for example, and the student was just lazy and copied it wrong.

education in the school

Where I live the elementary all the way up to high school in all subjects they do not correct spelling. They gave spelling tests in the elementary grades and only then did they correct a misspelled word. When I started questioning this and obviously complaining I was told that the children did eventually learn to spell through reading. My question to them was if they do not know how to spell how can they read? My 1st grader brought home a paper with three sentences written the teacher marked one mistake and gave her a smiley face and wrote great job. However she had two more mistakes like the one she corrected and one sentence read "I yousto pack my lunch" and it was not marked wrong or corrected in any way. My teenager is a senior in high school, she brought home an english paper with a score of 98%, three paragraphs and 15 misspelled words, she still got an A?

I think it is bad teaching. I mean in Kindergarten kids aren't going to spell perfectly, neither are first graders. I think in the lower grades (kindergarten through second), points should not be taken off for misspelled words unless it's a spelling test BUT it should still be pointed out that the spelling is wrong. The teacher should definitely spell over the word in red pen and make it clear that the spelling is wrong.
How are kids ever supposed to learn the right spelling is they are never told it's wrong? My teachers marked over my misspelled words in red pen all the time all throughout my schooling and it's honestly how I learned how to spell, since I hated bringing home papers marked up with red pen. I learned the words that were misspelled so that the papers would look pretty up on the fridge.

I would definitely bring that issue up to the teacher and let them know, or point out the mistakes to your kids yourself.

teaching your child after they come home from school

onemoreparadise, you are so right that is exactly how I learned. When my 1st grader came home with that paper she was so proud, but she also thought it was all spelled correctly. I agree with you the teacher should at least mark them or as my teacher would do she would write the correct spelling above the wrong one, this helped me to learn not only that is was wrong but what it should be. Then by the 4th grade I was in spelling bees and excited about spelling. I have talked to the teachers & principals for my oldest daughter for many years, you see she ended up starting the 6th grade unable to read except at a 1st grade level and now I am so frustrated it is happening again with my little one.

Well, there's always the chance that your children have dyslexia. *~ducks~* Even if they have straight As, it's possible they could have a reading problem of some sort. I had a 6th grade teacher say that she thought I might be dyslexic, but I was in the gifted program, so no one took it seriously... And I only *just* realized that et cetera isn't ect, but rather etc. If it's laziness and they're writing "leik txt speak w/lotsa abbv. &stuff" then that should be corrected... but if they're spelling "baeutiful" instead of beautiful, then it's possible it's a learning thing. Besides, they'll have a word-processor that will fix the majority of mistakes they make when they get to college.

If it's just assignments, then it makes sense for teachers to let it slide- unless it's text/internet speak. But if it's just little things- it's fine. Eventually- if their word-processor doesn't have autocorrect, then they'll learn it. If it's in *essays* then that's a problem. That's just my opinion though.

learning disability

yume aria, My oldest does have a learning disability but the schools would not take me seriously either. When I saw that my daughter had problems in 2nd grade and then could not read going into the 3rd grade, the schools were telling me that she was fine and right where she should be, telling me she would catch on in spelling, reading with time, Would make me crazy too.
I think it is even more important, if it can be more important, that children with disabilities get the right, correct fundamentals to begin with and continued throughout their entire time in school. When you have a learning disability and your teachers do not show the correct way I think it makes it so much worse. It makes it that much harder for those students to ever catch on, depending on the learning disability of course. My youngest is in the 1st grade and the teachers tell me she is at 2nd grade level, very smart, but is she??? Or can she grow in a system like this?

I agree that spell should always be fixed/marked up by the teachers no matter what the subject is. I also agree with the philosophy that spell should only "count" on spelling tests, English essays and possibly as part of a "final presentation" score on larger reports (eg poor spelling could be the difference between an A and an A+) However, as someone that has struggled my entire life with poor spelling, I don't think it should be THE important part of every lesson. Same with cursive writing. I think content and thought process are much more important.
I'm more concerned that there are Gr12 grads pretty much everywhere in North America that have a reading comprehension at a gr 6 level and that think that reading is a form of punishment.
Someone above mentioned that teachers say "spelling will come with reading"... it might for some but I know for myself that wasn't the case. Even once I learned to love reading (gr10'ish) my spelling didn't improve. I passed Gr12 English lit with an A+ BUT when I received my report card it had a B. I went to my teacher to complain and she said "Heather, you can't have an A+ in English literature if you can't spell" When I complained to the school principle he told me the same thing. He also pointed out that the B wasn't going to affect my academic future but it might make me want to learn to spell. I was hurt but understood their point. In the end, I think my spelling improved drastically after 2 key points in my life. One was reading bedtime stories (going back to basics no doubt) and the second was writing long winded responses in Live Journal and having my spelling immediately corrected all the time. I love that stupid red line under the mistakes that turns up immediately after I type a word incorrectly. It works phenomenally better than spell check for learning.

ps.... as you've likely noticed... I tend to leave letters out and miss the ending of words :(

AND I really should pay for my LJ account so I can fix these thing when I go back and re-read my own posts 20 minutes later :(
Sorry.

It's the "Whole Language Approach" and it's going out of fashion. Phonics and spelling will be back, it's swings and roundabouts in education just as in everything else.

THANK you to every one who has commented, as you can tell I am so frustrated, I have been in meetings for the past 2 weeks going over my daughters future education choices with her teachers. My only outlet in the past was writing about it when I couldn't sleep as a kind of therapy and before I knew it she was in high school and I now have I think 6 or 7 pages and am still writing in my journal. As a mother it is hard because you want the best for your kids. We all misspell words from time to time, either because we are lazy or did not catch it, but at least we know when we see it that it is wrong, these students don't.
I hope kittyface you are right, that it will come back and I hope it does soon.

As a parent AND a teacher, I have a lot to say on this topic.

1) Teachers SHOULD be correcting spelling, if it is a spelling related exercise. For example, spelling tests, dictation, story editing etc. If the point of the written exercise is the content (eg. a diary entry, a first draft, a brainstorm) then spelling isn't really the focus, and can be overlooked to some degree. By some degree, I mean uncommon words, age appropriate difficult-to-spell words, names and approximate spelling. Spelling "what" as "wot" is just plain inappropriate from at least grade 2 and up, and should be corrected regardless of the context.

2) Teacher "judgment" and "discretion" and "lesson focus" can become entirely skewed depending on the teacher. If you have really pressing concerns about how your child's teacher is teaching, have an interview with them first. If they are doing their job properly, they will either/both explain why and how they are doing it the way they are with good pedagogical backing, and/or come up with a solution which will suit everyone (eg. specific spelling related homework). If this doesn't work, have an interview with the teacher and principal. They are the boss and will do their utmost to back their colleagues, but you are ultimately their clients.

3) Teach your own children early. Give them sounding out skills, dictionary skills, get them to read read read with you and on their own as much as you can from as early as possible. 2 months old is not too early! Yes, this sounds like the job of a teacher, but if you want your kids to "do well", the home environment is the best place to start. Remember, you 5 whole years before your child starts school to teach them whatever you feel like. It won't matter, then, if the teacher your child happens to get in junior high can't actually spell very well themselves.

I read to her since the day she was born

I read and read and read to my daughter so much so that when she was able to pick up a book that is all she wanted to do was read,no toys,no dolls and no games just books, then after kindergarten and first grade started the nightmare began. It took a few years but in kindergarten she was reading or maybe it was memorizing from all the times I read to her, then first grade started the start of the nightmare. It was all gone for her. That is when I started writing my story or my daughters story. I have been trying to play catch up ever since. It is a long story and I am not sure if you would want to but if you do you can go to my journal and read it, I would love it with you being a teacher to see what your reaction would be. Or even maybe ideas of what I can do next! I am not sure how we go to someones else's journal page , I am new at this,this is the only site I found, lucky you guys huh! But if you can, it is about 6-7 pages long.

I don't agree that it is always "bad teaching". When you have school systems sued or almost sued for doing so much as grading in RED ink...
That said, some lower level teachers set the kids up for issues later by not instructing properly from the beginning. This also makes the jobs of later teachers MUCH harder. It took my daughter 3 years to unlearn the things that were taught to her in Kindergarten. My mother, an 8th grade teacher, is having to take time out of her normal class work to teach her students things they should have learned by the 4th grade.
When I catch something insanely wrong in my daughter's work, I tell her how to do it right and have her correct her work.

Can you give an example of what they aren't learning in kindergarten that has to be retaught in 8th grade?

I'm not a teacher nor a parent (yet), but as an English major, it irks me when I see a student spell something incorrectly and they are simply not corrected. What irritates me even more is that the teachers sometimes make the same mistakes, which means that they don't know squat about spelling anymore, either. I mean, I'll see a teacher's Facebook say something like, "Were going over grammer today!" ORLY?!?!

When I have children, I plan to teach them basic spelling and grammar from a very early age. It's important to me that my children are seen as the intelligent, capable children that they could be. And really, this will help them as they become adults. After all, if a person's resume has misspellings and/or text-speak all over the place, their resume is going to be thrown in the trash. Writing sometimes is the only first impression someone gets, so why not make it correct, in regards to both spelling and grammar?

RAWR!

I remember watching a segment about this on the telly once. This is something that bothers me to no end. The biggest F- up is when businesses or companies spell their name or the name of their product wrong on purpose. I really don't think it's cute. "Krazy oats" or "Krazee Krunchers" just does not help the matter does it?!
I learned in SECOND GRADE the construction of a sentence and the difference between your, you're, there, their, they're, we're, were, and so on. IT WASN'T THAT HARD!!! I really can't understand why any adult who made it past third grade still messes that up.
This text speak is pretty annoying as well. I can barely allow people to use "R" or "U" because I understand you want to make it fast. But why the hell does your phone come with a full keyboard when you're not even using words?! I learned to type in sixth grade on some sh*tty little machine. Again, it wasn't hard. There is spell check all over the place and people still get it wrong.
It's one thing to be lazy, but to be lazy AND stupid is just disastrous.

Thanks for posting, I am glad I got to rant a bit. We're not alone!

I was fortunate enough in my 13 years of going to school to have teachers that cared about the way that I spelled, and if I was spelling things properly. Because of this I'm pretty anal when it comes to proper grammar and I get a little annoyed at myself if I look back at previous posts to find that there's an error. I've noticed through the years how my friends spell, and how it's changed. It used to be they cared about spelling words wrong because they would lose points of projects, but now that they're out of school, they know they can't spell some word right and they just don't care.

I've also noticed this happening with kids younger than man as well. I don't even understand some of their lingo and shorthand, and I'm only twenty! I can only wonder what the world is going to be like if these kids don't learn how to spell!

Yes, spelling is important, but you can still comprehend without correct spelling. Children are still able to read their own writing when it is misspelled, as can adults. Have you seen that study that's been on the internet for years?

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers of a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

Hence the "whole language approach." It's not ~exactly~ what you're saying, but the point remains.

IMO, there's a difference between a study like this (which is meant to prove that our brains don't comprehend specific letters, but the word as a whole, through knowledge of how those words are actually spelled and our interaction with these common words) (oh, haha, I forgot that the example actually says as such!) and spelling words incorrectly from the start.

i.e. If someone insists on spelling the word "definately," it may be comprehensible to them, but not to a wider audience and especially those for whom English is not their first language, it will be seen as ignorant.

It's one (of several) reason(s) why I HATE the "whole language approach." It's not language if you're bastardizing it all over the place.

Sadly, my kid has learned more about reading and spelling properly from The Electric Company on PBS than from school.

I asked my daughters teacher about this (she's in kindergarten) and she said that at this point they just want to teach them to get words from their head onto paper. If you mark out everything they mark wrong, they will get discouraged and not try to spell those harder words. But my daughters in kindergarten, and I do expect that this will change in the higher grades. This approach (not marking words wrong) has really worked in getting my daughter to take risks with her writing, and not just stay in her comfort zone.

both of my parents were teachers when i was growing up.
my mom would always teach me over the summer.
it was cool, go to the grand canyon, and learn about how the river carved the canyon. but then she would do things like make me write essays and do spelling tests.

i hated her for that.
it never even helped me.

YES!

I thought perhaps I was the only one losing my mind around here. I am a (step) mother of two boys. I HAVE noticed that their school work is not corrected. I have also noticed that if a parent has to sign or initial their homework, their birth mother's name is there and the work is still all wrong! I always make sure these kids do their work properly. I need to know that they are understanding what they are doing. Each time I go over all of their work (including assignments already graded, etc.) there are mistakes. I make them correct it on another piece of paper to turn in whether they get credit for it or not. I don't understand why the standard of education is higher than when I was in school, but all of these little mistakes are really dumbing down all of their work. Well, that's what I think at least.
Thanks for sharing. I really thought my husband was right about me being a nazi about everything. hahaha ;)

This is one of the biggest reasons that I homeschool. :) I use the older-style curriculum. Full phonics, grammar, and spelling rules. He's working on prefixes and suffixes right now.

This.

From a teacher's point of view

I am a teacher in Canada. I teach an elective, and therefore don't have students submit much in terms of written work. I tell my students that I won't mark an answer on a worksheet or test wrong if I can figure out what they are trying to say but I do let them know that a word is used incorrectly or if there is a spelling error. My green pen gets a workout, as I use it to circle spelling errors. If a word is wrong multiple times in a text I will write the correct spelling next to it.
I feel that it is important that I support the efforts of the English department teachers in my school by being vigilent about spelling. With that said though, I know that some teachers aren't. It is a lot more work for me to fix errors that are not content related but that is my choice and what makes me a better educator (at least I like to think so!)

Re: From a teacher's point of view

Thank you thank you, you must be the one teacher I found in our school system. If every teacher had a green/red pen and used it as you did then I think we would have many kids not needing so much extra reading or kids would start to want to learn, if they see you care enough and that it matters to you, it will rub off and they will want you and their parents proud of them. I applaud you and I do know it is more work for you but the kids you have will thank you, maybe not now, but later. I pray more teachers are out there like you, please always do what you do.

Sometimes sucky schools are a part of life. If you cant transfer to a better district then supplementing her education is necessary. You have to do what you have to do, she's your child and she's going to need her education to do anything in life.

Thank George W. for this one. Since No Child Left Behind, rather than demanding the teachers and parents do more, they instead lowered the standards for the kids so they could slip through easier.

I was rather disgusted when studying for my English Regents exam ,when it came to the essay section, I found that they didn't care about grammar or spelling, just that you got the essay structure right.

If it weren't for fanficrants, I wouldn't know the difference between worst and worse.

The horror stories on this thread had me shuddering the whole way through. *is a grammar-holic*

Being in my last year of high school, I have a lot of experience with what you're all talking about. Every English teacher I've ever had (save the very LAST ONE) has done nothing but rehash the five-paragraph essay structure over and over for four years. As far as the rules of writing go, we'd never touched on anything more (to my displeasure) until my last English teacher (new to the school) threw a horrified fit over the state of the first assignments that got handed in and put us all through a two-week grammar/punctuation boot camp. Kids bitched and complained of incomprehension the whole way through, but, still, thank GOD for that man.

Why did nobody do anything sooner if the problem was so evident? This may be unfair, but I'm going to call laziness on the teachers' parts. They assumed we'd been taught spelling/punctuation/sentence structure etc. in elementary school, and when it became obvious that such was not the case, they did nothing. NOTHING. My essays, which were handed in after careful editing, received almost the exact same marks as essays full of typos, improper punctuation and outright txtspeak. Gosh, call me old fashioned, but I think when a seventeen year-old doesn't know to capitalise 'i', there's a problem.

I am extremely literate, but it's no thanks to the school system. My parents started me reading at two months, and everything I know about written and spoken language has come from reading. Nothing more. I edit my friends' essays and resumes-- hell, I edit my mom's university papers. And you know what? She got a comment back on one of them about her 'exceptional grasp of the mechanics of language'. I don't say that to brag, but to make a point. It doesn't just end at high school. Illiterate grads go on to university, where they proceed to bother professors with their poorly written papers to the point where a properly punctuated paper-- at the 300 level, no less-- becomes a notable rarity.

Demand that kids learn the fundamentals of language? HELL YES. PLEASE. Demand it of the teachers and demand it of your kids, because I can tell you that my peers, at least, take for granted that either they won't lose marks on poor spelling, or, if they know they will, don't care enough to fix it. They just take the loss of marks, then complain that the teacher's too tough.

grammar-holic love it

I am so glad you being in your last year of high school responded. I have been so exhausted trying to get help for my daughter year after year, but they continue to push her through year after year giving promises the whole way but never following through. I wish they could see that if they can't spell at a early age then the reading does not come, then if they pass them on again and again, well it just gets worse and worse, I have made my self sick these past two weeks, I think just not knowing what else to do before its too late. You should read my journal I wrote on live wire, it would make anyone crazy, first with disbelief then anger. She graduates in just a few months and they are still fighting me. Her term paper her english term paper will be the same no corrections for spelling or grammer,as long as they can understand her written words that is all that counts. I tried to explain that if she could get a job, I really don't think her boss would accept what the schools accept. It is so bad, I can't understand the majority of her papers, yet she gets an A? They want to make sure she graduates to keep the scores up and there graduating students up. I asked if they had any class that could go over the basics, they mentioned creative writing but said that in that class especially they did not correct spelling or grammer! Ok, I get it, be creative but be creative using the correct english language. They may find words exciting, who knows. I am fighting the highschool and my neighbors are fighting the elementary school,they have a 3rd grader, none of his work is corrected or even marked so he knows he is misspelling his words, my 1st grader of course is going to misspell words, but if the teacher would show her in red/green pen that it is misspelled I guarantee you my little one would work all night after school to fix it for her teacher. But let me tell her that it is wrong and lets spell it together , well then she just gets her feelings hurt and asks if it is good enough for her teacher then I am just being a meany(her words). Maybe one day the right person will get a hold of my journal, an one day I may finish it, and really do something about what they are doing to these kids, spelling is just part of it, a big part, but there is just so much more they are doing to these kids.

I don't know if teachers should or shouldn't correct spelling, but I challenge your assertion that children would learn more if they do.

My spelling is pretty much hopeless. It started getting better in my mid-twenties (just twenty years of seeing words spelled correctly, and I started being able to tell what was correct and what was not for short words), but no amount of correcting, circling, making me rewrite stuff made it any better. It just convinced me I couldn't possibly write. It's not laziness--I have difficultly sounding out words (in English, in Spanish, in Latin, and in Norwegian), and I can't easily identify misspellings.

I want to second

Still fighting the fight for education

Well I have not been back on in a while, I have been tired, sick, and almost ready to explode. But I am truly thankful to come back on line to see all of your comments coming in.

Here are the new things the school is telling me. First of all, I threatened to seek an attorneys advice if I did not get help for my daughter. I told the Principal and the others involved in educating my daughter that I was tired of them promising to educate my daughter and then my believing that just maybe, this time, she will get the extra help she needs. But then another year goes by and they pass it on to the next teacher. In the last 2 1/2 years I have been fighting to get back my own grammar, spelling ability since my stroke. I explained to them that my own health has been pretty bad, the last two years, I really had to believe in them as educators and what they promised to do, but again I was wrong.

When the attorney was brought up within 1 week they gave her not one but two tutors to help her with her grammar and spelling! They allowed her to go on two tours for Technical Programs, (they lost her first application for 11th Grade admission, said she did not turn it in for the 12th grade admission) but said she could fill out a third application and do "social graduation". This is where you go across the stage and when they hand you the diploma, hers will not be in the envelope. They hold it until she finishes the program. Well, first of all, to have a Senior in High School hear that she has to stay in High School... most I think would cry, but Giavonna was so excited that finally someone was giving her a chance. We had been fighting for so long.

So here it goes, after the tours both Giavonna and I got so excited, my chest was actually pounding with excitement. She decided on either child care or medical tech., the head of the Medical Tech program for some reason came up to us and started talking, as did many of the students. We explained we have been trying to get into one of the programs for the last two - three years, they said they have heard that about our school!

You see, these programs are at different High Schools, and I assume, our school would have to spend money for our kids to go to another school,as do the other school's when they send their kids to ours, or they only have so much funding. Gia told them that her school told her she was too dumb, which is how she took it, when she told them she wanted to enroll in one of the programs they would tell her it would be too hard for her, that she should just stick to her classes there at the High School.

The head of the program hugged her and told her that if she wanted in she would make sure she got in, she said that they are making two classes this next year and there was plenty room for anyone that was interested. She wrote down Gia's name, number and email and said she would call when she received he application.

In the mean time...I had another meeting at the school. This time I thought I had it made, because the program director promised Gia she would be sure to get her in. Except I forgot her words, "when I get her application".

I learned that all along it was the Principal and the Guidance Office that decided which student applications were submitted. For the past three years I was told it was not up to them, again, shocked and horrified. They then informed me without actually saying the words, they were not going to forward her application to the other school! They felt it would be too hard for her, even though the Program Director spoke with Giavonna for quite sometime and thought she would be an asset to the class. Said it was not her decision to make.

So, I have been so sick and tired of the fighting and then thinking we finally got somewhere that I just got physically sick.

Another meeting coming up on Friday!