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From: Rosalie B. on 24 Nov 2009 14:37
My niece is considering sending her child to private school because
they don't have spelling in the her son's class. The reason given is
that some people in the class are not native English speakers. Does
that reason make sense to anyone? It doesn't to me.

I never learned to spell until I learned to type because up to then I
didn't read the individual letters in the word (I was taught the whole
word method rather than phonics). But with all the texting etc that
goes on, spelling seems to be almost irrelevant.

My sister (whose grandchild this is), is a newspaper editor and she is
mentoring a freshman student at one of the Ivy League schools. She
says he has several times he has misspelled a word (college) but in
misspelling it, he has spelled another word correctly (collage), and
of course a spell checker doesn't pick that up. She asked if
spelling was just not taught anymore.



From: Darius S. Naqvi on 24 Nov 2009 15:36
Rosalie B. <gmbeasley(a)mindspring.com> writes:

> My niece is considering sending her child to private school because
> they don't have spelling in the her son's class. The reason given is
> that some people in the class are not native English speakers. Does
> that reason make sense to anyone? It doesn't to me.

Now there's good reasoning for you: some people in the class have
trouble spelling, so *nobody* in the class will be taught how to
spell! That way we achieve complete equality in terms of spelling
ability!

Apparently spelling isn't the only problem here. It looks like
logical thinking was not taught to the people responsible for this
idiotic decision.


--
Darius S. Naqvi email: dsn at dsn dot incentre dot net
("From:" line email address with "nospam" removed)
From: Betsy on 24 Nov 2009 20:51
Rosalie B. wrote:
> My niece is considering sending her child to private school because
> they don't have spelling in the her son's class. The reason given is
> that some people in the class are not native English speakers. Does
> that reason make sense to anyone? It doesn't to me.
>

I know that there are other public schools where the majority of
students are not native English speakers that continue to teach
spelling. Although it varies quite a bit from school to school,
spelling is now often taught within the context of rules and categories
of words rather than just lists of unrelated words to memorize.

If spelling is the only issue she has with the school, it might be
simpler for her to hire a spelling tutor to cover spelling outside of
school.

If the spelling issue is just one example of many ways in which the
school is not serving her child's needs, the private school option may
make more sense.

She may want to find out whether spelling is taught in other classes.
The age of her child makes a difference too. Many teachers don't
believe in teaching spelling before second grade. There can be a risk
of stunting a child's writing vocabulary by insisting on correct
spelling too soon.

--Betsy
From: Rosalie B. on 24 Nov 2009 22:27
Betsy <betsy(a)eskimo.com> wrote:

>Rosalie B. wrote:
>> My niece is considering sending her child to private school because
>> they don't have spelling in the her son's class. The reason given is
>> that some people in the class are not native English speakers. Does
>> that reason make sense to anyone? It doesn't to me.
>>
>
>I know that there are other public schools where the majority of
>students are not native English speakers that continue to teach
>spelling. Although it varies quite a bit from school to school,
>spelling is now often taught within the context of rules and categories
>of words rather than just lists of unrelated words to memorize.
>
>If spelling is the only issue she has with the school, it might be
>simpler for her to hire a spelling tutor to cover spelling outside of
>school.
>
>If the spelling issue is just one example of many ways in which the
>school is not serving her child's needs, the private school option may
>make more sense.

She thinks the child is not being challenged at all. But having had
children and grandchildren in private schools, I don't think private
schools will necessarily be better. Plus I think it depends more on
the teacher than on the school.

OTOH, this IS in Washington D.C. where there are quite good private
schools and the public schools seem to be in flux.
>
>She may want to find out whether spelling is taught in other classes.
>The age of her child makes a difference too. Many teachers don't
>believe in teaching spelling before second grade. There can be a risk
>of stunting a child's writing vocabulary by insisting on correct
>spelling too soon.
>
>--Betsy

This child is in 3rd or 4th grade and his younger sibling is starting
kindergarten.
From: Rosalie B. on 24 Nov 2009 22:30
dsn(a)dsn.incentre.nospam.net (Darius S. Naqvi) wrote:

>Rosalie B. <gmbeasley(a)mindspring.com> writes:
>
>> My niece is considering sending her child to private school because
>> they don't have spelling in the her son's class. The reason given is
>> that some people in the class are not native English speakers. Does
>> that reason make sense to anyone? It doesn't to me.
>
>Now there's good reasoning for you: some people in the class have
>trouble spelling, so *nobody* in the class will be taught how to
>spell! That way we achieve complete equality in terms of spelling
>ability!

My husband was once told that his 4.0 grade on a performance test was
being downgraded because a perfect score might pose a problem for
other students who could not attain that score. So they took a couple
of points off.
>
>Apparently spelling isn't the only problem here. It looks like
>logical thinking was not taught to the people responsible for this
>idiotic decision.

I'm wondering whether it isn't just that this particular teacher
doesn't want to grade spelling tests.
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