Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy When should teachers correct written work?

Interestingly, my view on this issue has shifted as my children moved from early elementary to late elementary. Regarding special work that are displayed, I still believe that a clean corrected copy should be prepared by the students with teacher input. However, for regular daily work, I am completely fine with the teachers not correcting every spelling and grammatical errors. The amount of daily writing is overwhelming and times 25 students would be too heavy a burden. I am glad that my children's teacher focused comments on content (i.e., literary analysis) and structure (i.e., supporting details).

I think that it is partly an issue of brain maturity and working memory capacity. My 5th graders (DS & DD) have always been near perfect spellers on spelling tests, but regularly made spelling errors in their written work. However, the frequencies of spelling errors have decreased substantially over time and were fairly rare by 4th grade. I think that when DS/DD have to focus so much working memory on quickly drafting coherent/cohesive substantive answers, it affected spelling. However, if I handed them the writing days later and asked them to locate errors, they can ususally find them. Therefore, my suggestion would be to have your DD try to locate her own errors rather than marking up her papers yourself I also think that with increased exposure to standard spelling (from lots of reading practice over the years), that many students do naturally improve their spelling. While I am not a proponent of "invented spelling," I do think that it frees many K and 1st and even 2nd graders to write freely and focus on content.