De speling Nazies loast de war. Its our rite to do wat we want. Fredum isnt fre.

I don't git it...

This Lemmon fella is a bit of a sourpuss.

Pheochromocytoma

I blame the internet and text-messaging. And these goddamn kids on my lawn.

lol
tl;dr

That bar was set long ago!

Reading is for liberals.

What, is right clicking the squiggly red line too hard for everyone now? You know you've been a copy editor too long when they start showing up on hard copy.

/More than a few times in my life I've written an entirely correctly spelled word, only to stare at it believing it had to be wrong. English is much like a sausage factory in some ways.

"An email or text message riddled with spelling errors reflects poorly on the person who sent it, if you ask me."
Amen!

We don't need two worry so much about correct spelling anymore, since we have auto-correct and spell-check too fix everything for us.

A friend of mine has a kid in 2nd grade and gets constant praises from her teacher for her writing when the handwriting and spelling is so bad that the mother has to translate it to anyone that looks at it. (seriously, not one word in a 3 page story will be spelled correctly)

The actual stories do have imagination and whatnot, but what does that matter is no one will be able to read it?

I used to do a lot of online role-playing, but in these last few years, the people who can't spell three letter words have been giving me a headache.

Did the page not load correctly for me, or was that a string of unconnected bs?

Vangor: . "Guess what we stopped doing about 15 years ago? We pulled all the spelling books off the shelves and stopped teaching spelling -or at least we put it on the back burner."

I disagree. We continue to shift from authentic literature towards leveled readers for the previous decade at least. This causes the reading of lower quality literature which has several implications. First, leveled readers avoid words which might be too challenging for the reading level, thus less exposure to vocabulary. Second, students do not engage with uninteresting reading or are frequently pulled from the book by stilted phrases and sentence composition for the sake of reading level. Last, there is nothing to draw from the books in terms of themes; no deep comprehension to share amongst a class or great message to share with peers.

Granted, I do not feel spelling is too important, but I would say emphasis on authentic literature to build a host of skills would be preferable to spelling workbooks which are tedious and extremely limited in scope.

As an English tutor I'm often faced with children who find no interest in English. To them it's boring. Once we read a few old fashioned stories they usually pick up a bit more interest. Old Arabian tales with beheadings and slaves, fairy tales with gore and violence like they should, ghost stories that aren't scary any more ( they usually laugh at those ) all make it more fun and they learn heaps!

I came here to say what Vangor said, so um. Yeah. *fist bump Vangor*

/wonder twin teachers unite?

KrispyKritter: want better spelling students in america? find out how the germans teach their children their language. they have words the size of billboards. a german spelling bee must take weeks to finish.

"Some German words are so long that they have a perspective" - Mark Twain

German has rules. English has them too: from Latin, Greek, German, Spanish, French, and any other language the English bumped in to.

When I was dating, I tended to date a fair number of teachers or women otherwise involved in education. It stunned me that so many of them had poor spelling and writing abilities. Sure, you can't judge everyone by an e-mail or a text...but then, you also can, when you expect that someone who's involved in education will be educated themselves, hence a bit ashamed to write poorly. My girlfriend, also a teacher, is a lot more fanatical about her own writing, which I like, because I suffer from the same affliction. But if the teachers can't be bothered to care, then how can they instruct their students to spell or write effectively?

Not to mention the world around them doesn't seem to care, either. I see so many spelling and proofreading errors in articles online, and it shocks me that an editor didn't call them out right away. Of course, there's that "get it out before the next guy" pressure in journalism, but does it matter if the article is sloppy and riddled with misspellings?

Of course, back when I was a freshman in high school, my English teacher had one piece of advice for us (among many) that stuck with me: "Make your first draft good enough to be your final draft. Don't plan on going back to fix that spelling error; you may not have time, or you may not remember." And especially when our drafts are digital, it makes sense; proofreading means correcting, not just identifying, those little errors.

Then again, when I'm caught with a misspelling, I get called on the carpet for it because of my usual perfectionism, and I feel ashamed. Maybe that lack of shame, or a lack of pride, is the difference. I'm not saying writing should cause anxiety, just that you should be proud of what you write, and accountable for whether or not it's correct.

The actual stories do have imagination and whatnot, but what does that matter is no one will be able to read it?

The answer is simply, "Yes."

Not only will the kid's handwriting improve over time, but if they keep practicing writing (three pages in second grade is fantastic!) they will pick up the spelling as they go along. Not to mention typing--many kids learn this skill early, to the point where, at my school, we actively teach how to pull the correct word off the spell-checker list.

Handwriting is nice, and if you have time in your day, it is a good thing to practice. Phonics instruction should continue through third grade.

But after that? Nuh-uh. Too much other important stuff to cover. Most kids do fine. One girl in my fifth grade class this year is now a published author, and her stories were utterly illegible until fourth grade. Now she writes better than most adults.

Spelling: Teach it, but don't freak out over it.

That's my motto.

Spell checkers have been invented. Welcome to the digital age.

KrispyKritter: want better spelling students in america? find out how the germans teach their children their language. they have words the size of billboards. a german spelling bee must take weeks to finish.

"Some German words are so long that they have a perspective" - Mark Twain

Now thats just teasing the grammer nazi's

TOO POTATO!!!!

it's barre not bar. WELL last time i checked

Let's obsess over the details of mechanics and usage. That way we can keep them away from critical thinking.

/yes I read "Errors and Expectations"

A lot of modern teachers lack basic spelling and grammar skills. The bottom of the barrel fall back teaching when they were too slow to get that Hotel Management degree.

/there are a lot of good teachers too

pwn3d781: When I was dating, I tended to date a fair number of teachers or women otherwise involved in education. It stunned me that so many of them had poor spelling and writing abilities. Sure, you can't judge everyone by an e-mail or a text...but then, you also can, when you expect that someone who's involved in education will be educated themselves, hence a bit ashamed to write poorly. My girlfriend, also a teacher, is a lot more fanatical about her own writing, which I like, because I suffer from the same affliction. But if the teachers can't be bothered to care, then how can they instruct their students to spell or write effectively?

Not to mention the world around them doesn't seem to care, either. I see so many spelling and proofreading errors in articles online, and it shocks me that an editor didn't call them out right away. Of course, there's that "get it out before the next guy" pressure in journalism, but does it matter if the article is sloppy and riddled with misspellings?

Of course, back when I was a freshman in high school, my English teacher had one piece of advice for us (among many) that stuck with me: "Make your first draft good enough to be your final draft. Don't plan on going back to fix that spelling error; you may not have time, or you may not remember." And especially when our drafts are digital, it makes sense; proofreading means correcting, not just identifying, those little errors.

Then again, when I'm caught with a misspelling, I get called on the carpet for it because of my usual perfectionism, and I feel ashamed. Maybe that lack of shame, or a lack of pride, is the difference. I'm not saying writing should cause anxiety, just that you should be proud of what you write, and accountable for whether or not it's correct.

I had a group of teachers that would come into the bar where I worked for Friday happy hour. One 5th grade teacher admitted she thought Alaska was an island because it was shown next to Hawaii on maps.

I am not the smartest man in the world, but I am a reasonably intelligent human being. The state of literacy and general intelligence in this country is disheartening. I can't even type incorrectly in text messages (u for you, r for are). But ignorance is celebrated. Any time you think differently, consider the fact that Kim Kardashian has 14.5 million Twitter followers.

Kibbler: That way we can keep them away from critical thinking.

I consider the extremely convoluted and highly arbitrary rules of English to be an excellent proving ground for critical thinking skills.

Why yes, my 7th grade English teacher turned my page-long rant about how much I hate writing poetry (which was the assignment that resulted in it) into a poem.

And yes, I admire his smartassery to this day.

*barre

FTFY

"USA Today ran a front-page story about the spelling and how it's still an important skill for credibility."

What about the grammar? Isn't the grammar also important?

Gyrfalcon: Hey, when presidential candidates' aides spell their country's name "Amercia" and nobody seems to care, why should anyone else worry?


Please differentiate between typos and spelling mistakes.

Kymry: Spelling: Teach it, but don't freak out over it.

That's my motto.

Spell checkers have been invented. Welcome to the digital age.

There are essay questions on the SAT and ACT now and the essays are handwritten. Spellcheckers don't work well on handwritten essays. If the student lacks spelling skills then he'll be at a disadvantage when taking college placement tests.

Whatever, the author can't even spell his last name correctly.

Says the guy who only writes single sentence paragraphs and has trouble writing a train of uninterrupted thought.

/just because spelling and grammar are correct doesn't mean it's readable.

tl:dr. Besides, awthor is a farkin' looser. LOL.

The thing I hate about spelling bees is that it's a stupid farking thing to spend 6-11 hours a day practicing, as the national champions usually do.

I say this as someone who made it to the Scripps semifinals. The total amount of time I spent studying was maybe a couple of hours. That was all it was worth to me. There is maybe, some tiny benefit to being able to put "National Spelling Bee champion" on your application to Harvard, and now there's $30,000 cash (it was a lot less when I was competing.) Beyond that, it's just working on a skill that is guaranteed to never get you laid, isn't fun, and isn't even academically useful.

My attitude toward it is, this prize is always won by those who are willing to sacrifice the most just to win for the sake of winning. That's not me, and I'm ok with that. Let them have it.