What the fuck ever happened to teaching spelling?

[TheMightyFavog]

I came across this while reading an article about a teacher who punished a student for saying that his mother was gay.

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/12/he-explained-that-you-are-gay.html

What the hell is wrong with our education system?

[Neoma]

1. that is the lowest ...the teacher is going to sue her?

tight..

[TheMightyFavog]

2. The parent should be suing her

For not teaching her kid how to fucking spell.

[eleonora]

3. and the teacher has the audacity to sue the mother??

:wtf: Man, I need to move to Europe.

[TheMightyFavog]

4. Wait a tic....

Is this whole letting blatant mispellings like this slide part of that "whole language" bullshit that's been spreading around the school systems?

[Bouncy Ball]

7. Slow up there...

the kid is in the first grade, right?

How perfectly did YOU spell in the first grade???

Bash whole language all you want, you'll be stabbing a straw man, as very few schools use an exclusive whole language approach anymore. Most of them use a combo of that and direct instruction. The part of whole language most often still used is immersing the child in a text-rich environment. There's certainly nothing wrong with that at all, especially when combined with direct literacy instruction.

Ease up on the kid, for Pete's sake. He doesn't spell much better than most first graders. They are just learning to READ at that grade level and have only been printing for about a year or so.

(It does crack me up that you say "that's been spreading around the school systems"--whole language used exclusively has been "out of style" for about ten years now...)

[TheMightyFavog]

9. Back in the day, I, as well as my fellow first graders.

Sure as hell knew how to spell words like "said", "Words", and "Mouth".

The only ones I knew of that couldn't spell these basic words back then (1987) were either in the super slow reading class or in specail ed.

[Bouncy Ball]

11. Well good for you.

I bet not EVERY first grader did. Did they?

My child's spelling was pretty atrocious in first grade. She's in fifth grade now, spells wonderfully well (has won spelling bees), reads on a tenth grade level and writes circles around most kids her age.

You can't go by how someone spells in the first grade.

[Left Is Write]

16. I agree.

I tested completely out of spelling by seventh grade, but I certainly had some "creative" spelling in first grade.

[realisticphish]

5. hes 7, ease up

but the article itself...holy fuck

:hippie: The Incorrigible Democrat

[darkism]

6. I wonder if this kid knows the difference

between lose and loose, because if he can get that right, then there's hope for him.

[Bouncy Ball]

8. Considering the fact that he was in the first grade when

he wrote those things, probably not.

But there's time. The kid's seven.

[JVS]

10. kids are told to improvise the words they don't know yet.

It's better for them to try to spell and do it incorrectly than for them to only write the words that theu are sure of. Over time they know more and more until eventually they know all the words they use.

[Bouncy Ball]

12. Wow

you put it better than I could. You're right....and it encourages them to write, instead of being hesitant. Kids who think they have to spell everything perfectly tend to not write very much.

Plus the more they read, the better they spell. Reading and writing skills feed into each other.

[Left Is Write]

14. Now I'm redundant.

I said the same thing about reading and writing.

[Left Is Write]

13. That will come as they read more also.

They will see words spelled properly as they do more and more reading, which in turn will help improve their spelling.

[JVS]

19. Yup.

[China_cat]

20. 30 years ago

I raised hell at my youngest's school for the spelling I was seeing. I was told then (and it hasn't changed) that kids don't really need to learn how to spell correctly when they're in the lower grades. As long as they incorporate the right SOUNDS into the words, that however it comes out is ok. That they'll 'correct themselves later'.

I said it was bullshit then, I still say it's bullshit but you can see the consequences all around you.

[TheMightyFavog]

15. I guess I'm a little old fashioned....

But I still think schools need to start emphasizing phonics more and more.

[Bouncy Ball]

18. Dear God no.

They already use phonics (that's the direct instruction part) in combination with a text-rich environment. That's the best approach. No more "See Jane run" bloody bore the kids to death shit. Pat mat cat. Ug.

The kids are fine.

[sasquatch]

17. Y, wat da fuk's rong wif mi spellan?

;)