Are we ignoring what poor spelling skills could be telling us?
My posting on spelling and grammar prompted a lot of comments, including this thoughtful email from a high school teacher.
With the teacher’s permission, here is the note:
I don’t respond to blog posts with emails very frequently but I thought I’d take the time to respond to your spelling and writing post from Dec. 3rd because it resonates with me closely. Only a few of your commenters approached the issue in the same way that I do: that phonics, spelling, and grammar absolutely must have a place in today’s classroom all the way through 12th grade, not because it’s “right” or “correct” but because it’s good teaching!
In order to help explain how I ended up with that position, I’d love to share my story as a new language arts teacher. Last year was my first year teaching. Sometime in January, after a whole fall semester of trial and error, I came to teaching vocabulary skills through using prefixes, roots, and suffixes.
I wanted to start off the new strategy with some easy words so I picked bio as my first root word. The first word: biology, the study of life. Every student in my class knew the definition of biology and that “ology” means “the study of.” That’s pretty much lesson one of biology class and my students aced it.
The next word: microbiology. Not a single student could tell me what it meant. Crickets. Somehow adding a prefix confused them so much that they could not determine what this new word meant even though it contained the word we just discussed previously. Something was terribly wrong.
Back in grad school we discussed the concept of a “schema,” which means, basically, a framework or pattern applied to something. My students’ schema for words was to treat them as a whole piece. When I added micro to the front of biology, I confused them because, from their point of view, I had created an entirely new word.
It’s as if I added another angle to a triangle and created a square. The problem is, that’s not how words work. Words have constituent parts which contribute to their meaning. My students were missing out on a major piece of their literacy because they were seeing words as a whole, unchangeable unit.
Not only does this have implications for their reading comprehension (How on earth can they figure out new, unfamiliar words if they can’t determine prefix,root, suffix?) but it also makes the task of writing much harder because they have no strategies for generating new words to fit their intended meaning.
When writing, suffixes are especially important because they determine the part of speech and tense of a verb. How many students go through years of instruction and never have subject/verb agreement? We tend to think it’s a matter of practice-makes-perfect. I think it’s a matter of teaching the nature of words.
Oh, you know what else? These were 9th grade students, 14-and 15-year-old kids who were completely unaware of a major component of the English language.
It should come as no surprise that they were also terrible spellers. Now, I have to pause and get on to you a little bit here, Maureen. Your examples from the presentation, it’s and its, are not misspelled. They are misused. And that’s a world of difference when you’re in my position and have to figure out where each kid’s language breakdown is occurring.
My students (and this is equally true of my current crop of 9th grade students) were at a total loss when it came to reading and spelling most words longer than two syllables. Some of my students were in even worse shape. I had and have students who don’t realize that vowels in the English language make two different sounds, long and short. Many of my students couldn’t tell me why the letter C sounds like an /s/ sometimes and a /k/ other times.
The root cause of spelling errors isn’t spellcheck. It isn’t using too much text messaging shorthand. It’s a lack of phonics knowledge. Letters make sounds. There are rules for why letters make those sounds. If you know the rules, you can spell anything. Most adults came of age in a world where their teachers were very prescriptive about spelling and grammar. Even without the schools pushing it, students acquire language skills naturally through their interaction with family and friends.
This is one of the reasons why reading with young kids is so important: you’re inculcating the rules which govern our language. Unfortunately, many students don’t have that in their lives. When a student misses out on the chance to develop an understanding of phonics “organically,” the schools have to pick up the slack.
But are schools going “back to basics”? Are they looking for students who miss out on the foundations of good literacy? I don’t know. After a year and a half, I can’t say for certain that there’s a system in place to target these students. That’s why I feel like I have to do it in my class; I can’t depend on the school system to meet their needs adequately prior to walking in my door every August.
I think we instinctively avoid mentioning these deficiencies and instead point to how impressed we are by the content. Presenters would rather talk about how impressive their students are from an analytic standpoint. I know I would. But spelling and writing are a window into each student’s understanding of our language. We can learn just as much from their spelling and grammar as we can from their content and analysis and teachers shouldn’t shy away from the hard truths.
If we don’t take the time to teach spelling and writing, how will we ever hope to improve those skills? Do they just appear magically? Next time you see a student misspelling words, look closely at what she is misspelling.
Is it just a mistake or a sign of a larger literacy problem?
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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113 comments Add your comment
Pride and Joy
December 8th, 2012
4:50 pm
Private, although I applaud your sentence diagramming, when you make elementary grammar mistakes, you undermine your point of view and it gives us a peek into your teaching methods. Most of all, children learn English grammar through hearing it. So, even in casual conversation, when you incorrectly say “I’ve taught sentence diagramming and it was, like, out of 12 English teachers in the building, me and one other teacher were the only ones doing it” instead of “I’ve taught sentence diagramming and it was, like, out of 12 English teachers in the building, one other teacher AND I were the only ones doing it” you are incorrectly teaching English grammar.
The most important teaching method is to teach by example. Teachers should speak and write English perfectly or they need to abandon their profession
and spend their efforts doing something that doesn’t require it.
Roberta
December 8th, 2012
10:05 pm
@Truth …. I will look into Abeka. The Kinder loves the primary lesson book, we just brush over the lessons as he is still a bit young for the work. I think he will do well with this book. But our 3rd grader needs something else. We tried three language arts books, none seem to fit her needs. We use “Spelling Power’ for her spelling, and she is finally seeing this works for her. When I tried to place her level, I was shocked at the gaps between the levels. I knew then she missed learning some key phonetic sounds. And I knew this was going to be a journey trying to teach her this year! thanks for the tip.
FYI
December 9th, 2012
12:53 pm
@ Private Citizen, Dec. 8, 10:43 am: “…or be a home school freak who will forever be displaced due to have nothing in common with the regular peoples.”
You do know, don’t you, that Truth in Moderation as she has stated in many past posts is a fundamentalist mother who home-schools her child with Asperger’s Syndrome (and has trouble relating to other people) and intends to have him live at home during college too. Among other things, she has taught him that the 3-part American form of government was created by our Christian Founding Fathers because it followed the Trinity and that the scientific theory of evolution is false. And he has had no experience thus with dealing with outside educational authorities and other school-children.
Claudia Stucke
December 9th, 2012
1:35 pm
@Truth in Moderation: Yes, teachers “like this” do exist in public education, and they are trying to teach our children essential learning skills. Students often come to class with the expectation of being given “the answers,” regurgitating them on a test, and getting a grade. The teacher in today’s post effectively articulates several challenges for today’s language arts teachers, and I thank her from the bottom of my heart.
Truth in Moderation
December 9th, 2012
7:30 pm
Looks like mystery high school teacher author was right:
“The study, out Thursday from the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics, looks at the vocabulary skills of students nationwide and finds that they closely track students’ reading comprehension levels. For fourth-graders, for instance, the top 25% of readers turned in an average 255-point vocabulary score on a 500-point scale; meanwhile, the weakest 25% of readers scored only 177 points.
The findings represent the first time that the federal government has analyzed vocabulary in isolation, and the results show that students have a long way to go: The average fourth-grader scored 218 points in 2011, essentially unchanged from 2009. The average eighth-grader scored 265, also unchanged from 2009. Twelfth-graders’ results for 2009 averaged 296 points, but the test wasn’t repeated in 2011.”
http://www.presstv.ir/usdetail/276981.html
Truth in Moderation
December 9th, 2012
7:45 pm
@FYI
BTW, exactly what “information” were you trying to post? All I see are pitiful lies.
“is a fundamentalist mother who home-schools her child with Asperger’s Syndrome (and has trouble relating to other people) and intends to have him live at home during college too.”
THIS IS A FALSE STATEMENT
“Among other things, she has taught him that the 3-part American form of government was created by our Christian Founding Fathers because it followed the Trinity”
THIS IS A FALSE STATEMENT
“And he has had no experience thus with dealing with outside educational authorities and other school-children.”
THIS ISN’T EVEN A SENTENCE. IT IS A FALSE STATEMENT.
Truth in Moderation
December 9th, 2012
8:24 pm
@Claudia
I laude you and other English teachers like you. However, yours is an uphill, if not impossible, battle. These basic spelling, reading, and grammar skills must be taught K-3rd or 4th to take advantage of a child’s brain development at that stage. Their minds are geared for “uploading” vast amounts of factual knowledge through memorization. As they mature, their brain is able to move into the logic stage and can use the information already stored in their long-term memory in new and innovative ways. The public schools have deliberately eliminated that first stage of learning. High school teachers should unite and put pressure on the elementary schools to go back to this method and do their job. They are sending you an inferior product. You should not have to be remediating basic grammar, spelling, and introducing prefixes and suffixes. They should be well versed in these things by 8th grade.
Truth in Moderation
December 9th, 2012
8:36 pm
@Roberta
Good luck with your home schooling. A Beka can be intense and fast paced at first. Slow down the pacing if necessary, but try to do most of the writing exercises and oral work. The hard work really pays off. Your daughter will have new language skills that will give her confidence.
FYI
December 10th, 2012
9:00 am
@ Truth in Moderation
December 9th, 2012
7:45 pm
Your denial here is itself a lie. Your fundamentalism is undeniable given what you write in your posts and the fact that the only sources you quote with links are right-wing, ultra-fundamentalist, and unknown individuals. During discussions about the rights of disabled children under ADA-law, you have noted that you home-school your disabled child because the school would not accommodate you; and you proudly noted that he was gifted but had Asperger’s Syndrome which caused others to bully him in school. A symptom of that disability is difficulty relating to other people. You got into a recent long discussion on the subject of evolution and the disabled with “Progressive Humanist,” and mentioned this again. On a blog-thread about the worth of college majors, you stated that your child would live at home when he went to college.
Several months ago ago you noted in an exchange of emails with “V for Vendetta” your unique theory about the origins of American government, providing one of your typical fundamentalist links as proof, and got into a heated exchange about the supposed “Christianity” of our Deist Founding Fathers, noting that one of your ancestors signed the Declaration of Independence. As I recall, “V” said you were committing child abuse to teach that to your child.
And if you are keeping your child with such a disability at home to home-school him, then of course the effect is going to be that he has no experience in dealing with external teachers or other school-children…this is the general consequence of all home-schooling.
Truth in Moderation
December 10th, 2012
9:51 am
@FYI
You are telling lies. Please stop.
You have nothing by which to document your assertions.
FYI
December 10th, 2012
10:59 am
@ Truth in Moderation. See the “Get Schooled” archives under these various subjects: home-schooling, disabilities, college majors… Of course, a great many of your posts are totally unrelated to the topic and consist of long patches from fundamentalist websites or books of the Bible that you have cut and pasted for all to read.
Truth in Moderation
December 10th, 2012
12:02 pm
@FYI
In other words, you have nothing to back up your lies. LOL!
Roberta
December 13th, 2012
2:59 pm
FYI — not all homeschool kids are backwards! My three attend a part-day part-week home-school co-op so they do get ‘outside teaching’, and the program is based on the university-model approach to education. But truthfully, I would not mind sending them to school all day so I can get a break! I could not imagine ever getting the kids out of the house !!!!!