Are we ignoring what poor spelling skills could be telling us?

The teacher has some good thoughts. But I am old enough to remember the problems of students so afraid to make a mistake they avoided writing altogether. Teachers wanted to know why essays were turned in with such simple words and story-lines. It was because 90% of your grade depended on punctuation, grammar, neatness, and spelling. The ideas you had did not matter much. Students did what they needed to do to get the highest grade possible, write short simple essays. When teachers reduced the overemphasis on punctuation, grammar, neatness, and spelling ideas flowed out and better stories resulted. The perfect is the enemy of the good.

Another thing to think about is that the English language is illogical in its rules. Language scientists have repeatedly stated that you would never use English as an example of how to create a written and spoken language from scratch. There are too many exceptions to almost every rule in English, thus making it ridiculously complex.

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I agree with a number of things this articulate teacher has written, especially the idea that reading makes all the difference in the world. A mountain of research has shown that books are far less available to children in poverty than in the middle and upper classes–and not just because the families cannot afford to buy books. Public libraries are typically less-served or in locations and with hours that make their services difficult and often dangerous for kids who want to read. And our school libraries and trained librarians are often the first to go in these days of budget cuts. Then, there’s the lunacy of NCLB and Race to the Top funding that all but destroys the concept of reading for pleasure; no…reading for points on research-less, standardized tests is the only game in town.

But I do applaud the teacher for attempts to help our kids decipher English. I hope that along the way, she’s focused on helping kids discover and/or nourish the joy of reading. That joy will take kids where they need to be.

The point with which I disagree is the idea that “rules” can teach kids to spell. Our language follows pronunciation rules only about seventy percent of the time. See this url for some fun examples:
http://www.i18nguy.com/english-is-tough.html

By the way, Peter, I love your games. Anyone trying to access the link needs to cut the period at the end of the link.

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At the risk of over-pitching these activities, I found that they both improved vocabulary and improved spelling, because students learned how to combine word elements properly.

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I am old enough to remember a push by some that moved us away from phonics. It seemed like a bad idea then as much as it does now and was well before NCLB. I think the same mentality led us to social promotions so we did not hurt the feelings of failing children. I was a volunteer for project literacy and was assigned a guy that graduated from an inner city high school that could not read a sentence or a ruler.

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I agree with our commenters. Since English is only 70-80% phonetic, we need to teach the children to also use their visual memory. Does the word “look right?” I have some ESOL second graders with very good visual memory–they can spell even difficult words because they can “see” them–they have read them many times. A child who reads a lot will likely have a much better visual memory word bank to pull from.

Our system unfortunately for way too many years was a part of Reading First. It (vastly over-) emphasized phonics. Now that we don’t use it so strictly, I have seen a decrease in word-attack skills. However, the biggest problem with RF is it did little to push comprehension, which is an absolutely critical part of “reading.” RF sold the idea that decoding words fast was “fluency,” which it was not. Fluency includes decoding, but it is an interaction between reader and text, not just word recognition.

We abandoned spelling when RF came on board; now, our teachers are demanding that it be put back into our curriculum.

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David Hoffman makes an excellent point about the illogic of the rules of the English language. It’s a classic error of new English teachers, who may not themselves have a strong grounding in advanced grammar and linguistics and the history of the language, to believe that if they can just teach the kids “all the rules,” then everything will fall into place. Incidentally, the lack of logic makes sense if you look at the amalgamation of other languages that have contributed to English–there are subsets of rules that make sense by themselves, but not in the larger scheme.
At any rate, the new English teacher makes great points about teaching the nature of words as well as the distinction between spelling and usage (”its” versus “it’s” is a prime example of a usage error confused by many as a spelling error).
Without knowing anything other than what the teacher relates in the prefix incident. There was a very telling assertion made: “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.”
As an administrator who has done a lot of work in new teacher induction and teacher supervision and evaluation, I would ask this teacher, “How did you assess and determine that 100% of your students in fact did not know this information?” I strongly suspect that the teacher asked the whole class the question, and no one offered a response. That doesn’t mean that no one knew—it means that no one indicated whether they knew. This is a classic teacher error—to assume that because no one speaks up and says they don’t know the answer to the teacher’s question, then no one knows the answer. Asking a whole-class question orally and waiting for students to self-identify as not knowing the response is one of the least effective ways to assess learning.
Had the teacher assessed the knowledge differently, perhaps in a brief written preassessment, s/he might have determined that in fact several kids did know. This would enable him/her to target the instruction so that those who did have the prior knowledge didn’t need to sit through a whole-class lesson on the topic. If I were the teacher’s supervisor holding a conference to talk about this issue, I’d ask clarifying questions and help the teacher determine what in fact s/he does know for sure about the students’ prior knowledge, and then guide the teacher in differentiating the instruction so that those who need “the full treatment” get it, and those who already know it aren’t held back.

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“Another thing to think about is that the English language is illogical in its rules. Language scientists have repeatedly stated that you would never use English as an example of how to create a written and spoken language from scratch.”

Amen to that! Especially when it comes to pronunciation.

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Maybe we should all learn Esperanto.

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I also agree that READING is essential to proper spelling.

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While many are right that English is a very mixed language with exceptions for every “rule”, I have found in working with older struggling readers that all students need to know and be able to use the rules while also relying on the visual memory of words. Many of my students are weak in both areas, and it helps them to know there is a system they can try that works for 70-80% of words they encounter. It makes them more willing to tackle vocabulary beyond their often very low assessable reading level and gives them specific strategies to try. When they have that base, they are more able to build their visual memory of words, and they begin reading better because they’re not so afraid of text that they assume will always be too hard for them to read. A balanced approach, where phonic skills are taught and used early, better prepares those kids who lack literacy and language experience. Once they realize they can make sense of words, even if only 70-80% of those words, they begin taking on more challenging texts and really trying to read and understand. This also improves their writing skills as they have a larger word bank to express their thoughts.

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are we ignoring it? no.
in fact, we go to great lengths to hide it/pretend its not there.

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Wow. I didn’t think teachers like this still existed in the public schools. She GETS IT! This teacher was properly trained in grammar, phonics, and spelling and has the tools to properly diagnose learning deficits in her students. To fully understand English, one must look to its origins. The prefix-root-suffix system comes from Latin and Greek, a source for 33% of English words, especially those used in STEM courses. Old English was a Germanic language, of which surviving words represent ca. 25% of modern English. Old Norman French, which did originate from Latin, provides a further 28% of modern English words.
When one studies English, he is actually studying multiple language phonics and spelling rules. This is by no means impossible to teach and is one reason why our ancestors emphasized the study of Latin, Greek, and French. The WW ll generation was still REQUIRED to study Latin in public middle and high school. The most successful way to teach the intricacies of our language is to start in K-5 using the Classical method or the “Trivium.” This method utilizes the known brain development patterns in children.
According to Susan Wise Bauer, an expert on the topic:

“The first years of schooling are called the “grammar stage” — not because you spend four years doing English, but because these are the years in which the building blocks for all other learning are laid, just as grammar is the foundation for language. In the elementary school years — what we commonly think of as grades one through four — the mind is ready to absorb information. Children at this age actually find memorization fun. So during this period, education involves not self-expression and self-discovery, but rather the learning of facts. Rules of phonics and spelling, rules of grammar, poems, the vocabulary of foreign languages, the stories of history and literature, descriptions of plants and animals and the human body, the facts of mathematics — the list goes on. This information makes up the “grammar,” or the basic building blocks, for the second stage of education. ”
http://www.welltrainedmind.com/classical-education/

During this grammar stage, drill and rote repetition IS CRITICAL. This is where the public schools have undermined the students. This stage has purposefully been removed and substituted with a “dumbed down” version utilizing so-called “whole language”. The true nature of the English language has been ignored, to the detriment of the students. Once a student has passed this “parrot” stage without putting these details into their long term memory, IT IS ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE to remediate by the time they are in high school, as the author of the article has noted.

Most home schoolers have rejected the failed EXPERIMENTAL whole language method, and have returned to the Classical method, WITH AMAZING RESULTS. I credit this process with the success of all my children in language arts, including one with ADHD and another with Asperger’s syndrome.

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Maureen, your article is right on. The teacher made a strong argument for the teaching of all aspects of English language. From reading the posts, I think you have a few “wish I were a published writer, too” folks. Or if they have been published they would like to do it one more time.

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@homeschooler

Your son might have a learning disability. One of mine, who has ADHD, was taught to read, write, and spell using A Beka phonics curriculum. He STRUGGLED. We spent HOURS on spelling lists. Yet, we continued practicing THROUGH high school. As a young adult, who is gainfully employed and self-supporting, he has noticed that among his co-workers, he is now the one with superior language arts skills, INCLUDING SPELLING.

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“Is it just a mistake or a sign of a larger literacy problem?”

It’s the sign of a much larger problem, period. When kids can’t spell correctly or use the correct word in a sentence, or do math without a calculator, or any number of other things that they are supposed to know at a certain grade level, what happens? They get promoted to the next grade anyway, which sends the message that there is no accountability.

If they aren’t taught accountability as students, what happens when they become adults? Look at the front page of any newspaper (including this one) and see the results for yourself.

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I never cared much for political correctness

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Phonics and reading are the key, in my opinion.

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If left alone, this teacher could remedy many of these issues within one school year with these students. It may be impossible to do so when the testing intrusion begins and when administrators start hanging around in the classroom like spooks in the corners of a Scooby Doo cartoon and then come back and work-conference with the teacher, telling them what they should and should not be doing. If I was a mentor to this teacher as a worker in Georgia, I would advise them to have a private attorney on stand-by and when the administrators start causing trouble and playing careerist-know-it-all, to routinely copy over and forward any and all email and documentation received to the private lawyer. The alternative is to burn out quickly and stop being a teacher. And even this does not address the testing intrusion that keeps the kids off-task and on the edge of their teeth.

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I would also note that vowels in English have MORE than 2 sounds. Example: a sounds different in cat, cape, car, awe, and so on.

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Maude, odd how you have bought into giving authority to children, as if the adults are idiots, much less the teacher. I’m sorry you had dismemorable schooling. I did not. I think you highly take for granted that, evidenced by your post, you write clearly today. This did not happen by magic. You were trained to do so and apparently this is lost on you. I’m stunned. Maybe you work around high level kids who do well on autopilot. Most kids do not.

Accessing prior knowledge (satire): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bIhPr8lY7s

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Maude, pardon if I’m lacking tact.

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Maureen do tell me why you want to MODERATE me!!!!

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Isn’t this the same thing that every generation has said about the youth of their time? “Kids these days just don’t get it and are destroying the language.” Guess what, the kids that are in school today who can’t spell will be complaining in 20 years when they see what the current generation is doing to the language (along with how lazy they are and how they don’t know anything about work, and how they just want everything handed to them).

Certainly there are basics that must be in place as a foundation, but an awful lot of the comments here seem to fall into the “get off my lawn” category. Language (including spelling, pronunciation, word meaning, and grammar) are constantly evolving and have been since the first person said the first word.

Your parents said the same thing about you, and their parents said the same about them. This is an age-old situation that isn’t going anywhere.

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GOB, and again, your post is evidence of someone who can write clearly and you have literally zero concern / reality-check for the youth of today. You need to have a stack of 100 papers in front of you, student work, of bubble writing (where many of the letters are big round circles taking up the line from top to bottom), no margins, and disorganised jumble on paper as writing that you’re supposed to grade and make sense of. What are they doing in the elementary schools, feeding the kids baloney sandwiches and singing songs? Because in many places they’re not doing much.

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PS It is difficult to reform a kid’s handwriting skills after they have passed the developmental period and have internalised their writing system of script.

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Maybe the doctor can go out in the woods and find some leaves and grind them up for you and make a paste so you can get medical treatment on the Georgia Plantation. They’ll tell you you’re all better now and you’ll believe it.

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American English is a clusterfart of words. For every rule there are a number of exceptions.

I think most readers, and the OP’s letter, figured out that this is a problem when phonics is NOT used. Too much reliance on sight reading whole words leaves children unable to truly pick apart and analyze words. Yes, phonics often leads to incorrect results. But everyone for a very long time used phonics successfully, and that group of people had better grammar and spelling skills. We have continued on this path long enough to realize that the “sight reading whole words” method is INFERIOR. It’s a grand experiment that has failed (much like the “new math”, grouping kids of all abilities together in the same class and teaching to the lowest common denominator, etc).

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Dr. Henson, I think it is educators like you who are part of the problem and indeed perpetuate it. If a student in the class knew the answer, they should have spoken up, period. We have to stop coddling children. I suspect that lots of people would argue about “social stigmas” of being the “smart” or “nerd” child, but it’s neither here nor there in this example. Someone should have spoken up if they knew the correct answer.

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20% of children have some form of dyslexia. The remediation is an evidence-based intervention like Orton-Gillingham, Lindamood-Bell, or Wilson program. As a lay person, just a parent, I can say that those methods seem an awful lot like phonics, word-attack strategies, sounding out words, the opposite of whole language programs. If evidence-based, multisensory, rigorous reading programs were authentically implemented in public schools, all children would benefit. Dyslexic children would learn to read before they developed a pattern of failure and falling behind. Non-dyslexic children would learn to read faster and have better literacy and linguistics skills. Public schools would have less kids on IEPs and need less special ed teachers needed for otherwise bright and talented kids with reading disabilities. Too many public schools in Metro Atlanta, including some premier systems, have a mish-mosh of reading instruction, a little of this, a little of that, “depending on what the student needs” (based on what science?) not a rigorously designed and implemented curriculum. Then they try to skimp on special ed services for children who seem bright but are struggling with reading. They do not have a good understanding of the neuroscience behind reading disabilities and the savings they would incur in services if they used an evidence-based, multisensory reading curriculum and implemented it faithfully, not as a part of a goulash of instructional techniques.

For those teachers, parents, and others interested in learning more about dyslexia and effective reading instruction, look into the Georgia Branch of the International Dyslexia Society. It is hosting a great conference that lots of area teachers, parents, and clinicians can attend:
Friday and Saturday, February 1 & 2, 2013
Dimensions of Dyslexia Southern Regional Conference
Cobb Galleria Centre
Atlanta, GA
I’ve attended this before and found it highly informative and useful.

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there is a constant theme of self esteem of students, and not damaging it by catching and correcting these fixable mistakes.

if we have the courage to make them feel bad now, we’ll spare them the humiliation of being and feeling like a moron later.

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@MANGLER
“Being able to comprehend a sentence, as well as being able to construct one, are paramount to anybodies success.”

While I am in total agreement with your post, please practice what you preach.
Should be “anybody’s success”

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“Fortunately for most of us in our 60s (gifted and non gifted – with me being in the former category), ”

Should read:
“Fortunately for most of us in our 60s (gifted and non gifted – with me being in the LATTER category…..)

…..I am NOT gifted and was never in the “fast” reading group. I slogged along with phonics and word patterns and lots of practice. Reading may have come slowly to me, but phonics ensured I can just about spell anything.

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You need to pass this along to some of your fellow bloggers…..Especially the Falcons beat writer. The guy is a lawyer who’s prose and discourse is tantamount to a 5th grader.

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I just turned in my grades — I teach at a GA system university. Many did well, but those students who did not (98% were first year students new to college) had trouble reading, and therefore didn’t read much or at all. Many weren’t bashful about letting me know that, either. I do GRE prep courses and I too find they don’t know prefixes/suffixes, etc. They shut down and cannot try to reason out what a word might mean (even enough to figure out if it fits in the model of the analogy used in the GRE question).

Unfortunately – most of higher ed is geared to reading tools. I had lots of things I could give them to read to help them learn, but when reading IS the problem, college becomes harder. I tried some youTube and iTunes lessons in my discipline, but again, not sure many used them.

Spelling and writing and reading are foundational. We ignore them at our students’ peril.

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Our language is undergoing transformation via twittter and texting. You can’t mispell words when you abreviate or make them up.

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The same physics teacher on the last day of class, he also gave us each a photocopied thousand dollar bill returned with our final.

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PS yes I an furious about how colleges have been turned into debt mills. And professor, who are you working for? the bank or the common good? because the bank has figured out how to make you work for them and they don’t even have to pay you. They ought to just take down the Georgia State and UGA signs and put up “Wachovia!”

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“Georgia

December 6th, 2012
5:27 pm
Our language is undergoing transformation via twittter and texting. You can’t mispell words when you abreviate or make them up.”

You’re the only one that posted the real truth. Goodness . . .some wrote books in their replies to this blog but failed to take notice to the real problem. Texting is the problem.

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Phonics can teach children the basics of the English spelling system, but no more than that. What the endless mistakes of students tell us is that learning to write English is very difficult. And anyone who bothers to take a closer look at their errors, can easily see that they are due to the inconsistencies of English spelling. Students get into a muddle with irregularities like the different spellings for the ee sound in ’speak – speech, shriek, seize, scene’ which cause word-by-word memorisation of inconsistencies for at least 3,700 common words
http://englishspellingproblems.blogspot.com/2010/11/english-spelling-rules.html .
Worse still, some inconsistencies of English spelling make even learning to read exceptionally difficult, such as ‘on – only, once, other, woman, women’. English literacy acquisition is therefore far more challenging than that of Finnish which spells its 38 sounds with just 38 phonically completely reliable graphemes.
After 300+ years of complete neglect, making English spelling as simple as the Finnish orthography in one go would be difficult, but it could be made substantially more learner-friendly. But for this to happen, there needs to be greater understanding that English spelling irregularities are very costly
http://www.englishspellingproblems.blogspot.co.uk/ .

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It think Private Citizen has way to much time on their hands. If you define a child by their spelling skills you have missed most of the child!! I teach kindergarten and I wish I could share the writing my students do. It is rich and very creative and shows complex thinking that most people think a 5 year doesn’t have. when you teach a child to put their thoughts on paper without fear of spelling mistakes their mind is free. While you may not be able to read my students writing I can, they simply put down the sounds they hear in each word. It is rare that I have to ask a child what they were trying to say. I stand by my first post to define a child’s writing ability by their spelling skills is a throw back to years long past.

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GOB, Your main point is a dismissal using generalization. same thing that every generation

Even at this moment I find it awkward to try and get in “the zone” with your comment. It is as though you have lost all meaning. This comment of yours sort of equates when someone says, “There is nothing we can do.” What it really means is that you are not hungry and that you live well. Maybe you think everyone else lives well, too. I mean, good for you, but we likely live with different demographics, perhaps even local / regional resources.

I am just curious, if I may ask. 1. Do any of your students within the last five years need eyeglasses and live without them as a sort of accepted reality?
2. Unrelated specifically to any of this, do you care to share the title of any literature / poem / story you’ve been working with, assigning? (this is so I can see what is going on outside of my own “bubble)(”up periscope”) Thanks.

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Truth,
Thanks. Don’t you hate it when you go off on a rant and miss something silly like that? Happy Friday!

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Globeflyer, my parents never read to me. They never got involved nor were they ever interested in me; however, I do enjoy reading and I am a pretty good speller and use grammar well.
What made a difference in my life? The teachers. I learned to read by using old-fashioned phonics. I learned the rules and the EXCEPTIONS to the rules later. For example, “i” before “e” except after “c” but what about the “p” in R E C E I P T?
My eighth grade English teacher did a great job teaching me by showing us how to diagram sentences. We practiced in class and at home for six weeks. It was a tremendous learning experience.
My classmates did the same. We were poor and went to a poor school. We learned grammar, spelling and punctuation because we had good teachers. It wasn’t because we had good parents or money or a public library.

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“While you may not be able to read my students writing I can, they simply put down the sounds they hear in each word.”

Should read:
While you may not be able to read my students writing, I can; they simply put down the sounds they hear in each word.”

Now I can read YOUR writing.

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The author wrote:

“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.”

It just so happens that my 6th grader is currently studying how to classify insects. Today he had to learn/memorize the names of 8 orders of insects. At first the list seemed daunting: Orthoptera, Odonata, Coleoptera, Homoptera, Hymenoptera, Lepidoptera, Hemiptera, and Diptera. I then pointed out that all the words, except one, ended in “ptera”, which is Greek for “wings.” I reminded him that his favorite dinosaur is a pterodactyl, which has wings. Now the words looked much easier. All described different kinds of wings. All he needed to study was the prefixes and their meaning. “Ortho” means straight, like orthogonal lines, which my child is familiar with. “Coleo” means “sheath” or “covering.” Next, “Homo” means “same”, and we certainly hear that prefix frequently in the media. “Hymen” means “membrane” and Lepid means “scale.” The last two are easy; “Hemi” means half, as in hemisphere, and “Di” means “two” as in “diploid.” “Odonata” does not use the “ptera” root, but the “Odon” prefix and means “toothed,” just like the word “orthodontist.” Breaking the words down like this put my son at ease, and he had no trouble learning them.

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@ Roberta
The best phonics/reading/writing/spelling program is Abeka. They are advanced, so a third grader who has not had true phonics/spelling would need to start with their second grade language arts. She would not be bored. You can use their streaming video to see how their method works. There is nothing like it in the public schools. After a year with the videos, you could probably teach it yourself using their home school book based curriculum. It is great that your child is motivated to write. You should teach her that what she is doing is creating a “sloppy copy”, or first draft. With A Beka curriculum and workbooks, she can begin to learn to edit her work for an accurate final draft. If you don’t intervene now, she may not recover. Timing is critical.
http://www.abeka.com/ABekaOnline/ProductSearch.aspx?grade=G3&subject=&title=&sbn=

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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. I recently resigned and the other teacher just quit due to the retirement / money thing. Well, we tried. Maybe some of students will one day see they were the last of the last as we put upon this them terrible thing called traditional instruction. It’s all going to be pushing buttons from here on out and if you want anything different, go private or be a home school freak who will forever be displaced due to have nothing in common with the regular peoples.

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“or be a home school freak who will forever be displaced due to have nothing in common with the regular peoples.”

Should read, “…due to having nothing in common.”

PC, your assertion has no bearing in my “real world” experience. In fact, they end up being the leaders, and have also been trained to volunteer and look beyond themselves. Not too many “baby daddies” in the home school population either. And of course, they can read, write, and spell. Many of the families are debt free. Hmmm. Come to think of it, maybe they ARE freaks. Yes, the NWO Wallstreet Banksters should be VERY afraid.

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@PC
“I’ve taught sentence diagramming”

Good for you. The problem you encountered is that it was taught too late and the students never had a proper foundation in grammar, beginning in 1st-3rd grades. The curriculum we have used teaches sentence diagramming from the beginning. It begins with diagraming a noun and a verb and gradually adds the other parts of speech. This is repeated every grade through 12th. Using this method, students can easily analyze a sentence and check for grammar. Proper usage is taught from the beginning, so bad habits do not have to be unlearned.

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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.

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@ 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.

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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

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@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.

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@ 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.

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@ 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.

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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 !!!!!

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