Get Schooled

By OldSchool

May 31, 2006 12:27 PM | Link to this

Eye surtinlee kan spel. Eye spel verrie wel. It am grammar what gits me and commas. Aye use two mini commas an do sum runon sentences alot.

Just kidding. When it comes to blogging, I’m guilty of typing much like I speak so the grammar isn’t always correct. As for spelling, I will either look the word up for the correct spelling or I will choose another word that I can spell.

One of my hobbies is reading and I love collecting and sharing words. Some of my favorites are “pintle and gudgeon,” “aglet,” and “gallimaufry.” (I’m typing without my glasses so I’ll blame any misspellings on that, okay?)

By Teacher Teacher

June 1, 2006 12:07 PM | Link to this

I would think knowing the meaning and part of speech of a word to be much more important than its spelling. So many students fail to become adept at writing for the simple reason they sit and stare at the paper, trying to think of how to spell such simple words as machine. Who cares if it is incorrectly spelled? As long as the idea is there and I can recognize the word, a student is always able to return to the text and edit it.

Having said that, it is sort of sad that so many students enter high school and do not know how to spell machine, for instance, or restaurant. The difference between there and their poses problems as does the difference among to, too, and two.

That children are able to generate such excitement in the public about being able to spell such words as antidisestablishmentarianism or mnemonic brings to mind the concept of trained seals. Isolated spelling of words has less relevancy than the use of the words being spelled.

Good-by or Good-bye?

By MMM

June 1, 2006 12:35 PM | Link to this

I rely on spell check, and try not to get hung up on the occational typo, by either myself or others to this blog. The best way of learning spelling is to do lots of reading, and as reading for pleasure fades, so does picking up correct spelling via osmosis.

Just as we kids that cannot speak standard non-explitive laced English have greatly diminished prospects for succeeding in mainstream society, kids who never read have diminished prospects for succeeding at higher education and all the careers that require it.

My husband went to the national spelling bee twice representing Florida in the 1970’s. It would be interesting to reflect on how the expierence has changed.

By OldSchool

June 1, 2006 04:17 PM | Link to this

Actually, teacherteacher, I care that a word is correctly spelled. I keep dictionaries in my classroom and encourage students to use them. It only takes a minute to look up a word and to make certain it is correctly spelled in whatever they are writing. Clear, concise, CORRECT information is so very important. In my own humble opinion, we do students no favor when we do not insist that they take the time and care to spell every word correctly.

By Teacher Teacher

June 5, 2006 12:19 PM | Link to this

I, too, appreciate correct spelling; however, I do not want my students to waste valuable time in transcribing their thoughts into words on the page by worrying whether a word is misspelled. Write down your thoughts, then go back and edit. For whatever reason, a majority of the students whom I teach have a problem with spelling very simple words. Although the students might know the meaning of a word (having obtained the concept through sound and not sight), they do not know how to spell the word. For instance, during summer school, I taught 10th grade English. We always began the day with a 15-minute writing. I was warned about this one student, an 18-year-old gang member who had just been released from jail and who had a terrible reputation. He acted out and talked and talked and talked. Making a long story short, I finally realized that the reason he would be disruptive and chatty was his defense mechanism so as to get out of having to write anything of great length. Why? He could not spell, and his personal lexicon was very, very small. He would spell machine as musheen. Once he realized that what I cared about was that he get whatever thoughts were in his head on the paper without worrying about spelling, punctuation, etc., he wrote pages of stuff. Then I would call him to my desk and have him read his writing to me, and we would discuss spelling, punctuation, etc. That was much more rewarding that giving list after list of spelling demons for him to memorize, which, of course, he wouldn’t.

Substance over appearance wins in my court daily! Know the meaning first, its use second, and then be able to spell it.