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

I'd have to tentatively agree with Bostonian that that study can't really be applied to elementary students learning English. It's also quite old. There could, of course, be newer studies showing the same sort of thing.

That really seems like a great technique.

I will say, seeing an unpolished, uncorrected collection of writing from DS's class posted last year was very helpful in understanding how far out his writing issues were.

I'm with you on this. However with the current trend toward keyboarding and word processing, and less emphasis on handwritten work it seems more teachers are counting on their students to use spell check programs... just as more students are crunching numbers with calculators and no longer doing much math in their heads or on paper.

Notable exception, when looking at spelling throughout the educational career: Standardized test essays such as AP and ACT are still handwritten (at the moment)... this is different than calculators being allowed on (some) standardized tests.

To help a child with spelling while not demoralizing him/her, I've heard of first complimenting the work... then asking for help reading it, then asking if they want to learn the dictionary spelling of any words you found difficult to read (because they were written phonetically). If they want to know... great. If they don't want to know, at least you've raised their awareness that
1) there is a correct spelling
2) they can easily see what the correct spelling is
3) others may find phonetic spelling difficult to read
By piquing their curiosity, eventually the child's curiosity may win out and they may want to know the correct spelling.

Here is a humorous poem about spell checkers... (and my pet peeve, auto-correct which is more like auto-sabotage!)...
http://www.latech.edu/tech/liberal-arts/geography/courses/spellchecker.htm

Oh, yes--I think it is generally an intentional pedagogic position.

I just took a look through Google Scholar myself and found surprisingly little, which sometimes means that something is an unexamined sacred cow.

I also like the method Sweetie describes.

I think the teacher's not correcting spelling is intentional.
She said they use a curriculum of Lucy Calkins to teach writing. An article critical of her approach (although some commenters at the site defend it) is

http://educationnext.org/the-lucy-calkins-project/
The Lucy Calkins Project
Education Next
SUMMER 2007
By Barbara Feinberg

The spelling curriculum is Sitton Spelling, about which I complained in an earlier thread "spelling curriculum" http://giftedissues.davidsongifted.org/BB/ubbthreads.php/topics/126178/Re_spelling_curriculum.html .

The research clearly supports invented spelling. However, the research doesn't support that teachers shouldn't teach how to spell correctly. In fact, the teacher's role is to move students from emerging literacy to conventional literacy. This should certainly be the case by second grade.

You'll have to take on this role since the teacher isn't. You don't want to correct your DD's work. Instead, ask her what words she's unsure of, help her to sound out and create approximate spellings, and teach her how to use a good children's dictionary to confirm her spelling or correct it.

These are two good articles. I teach writing at a university, so a pre-K specialist may be able to lead you to more current studies.

“Invention, Convention, and Intervention: Invented Spelling and the Teacher's Role” by Lawrence R. Sipe
Reading Teacher, 55:3, Nov. 2001: 264-73.

Abstract: Highlights the teacher's critical role in spelling instruction and provides examples of how to support spelling development in classrooms. Argues that educators need to look closely at children's emerging capacities as writers, focusing especially on the issue of invented spelling, and its use and misuse in classroom practices.


“Effects of Various Early Writing Practices on Reading and Spelling” by Laurence Rieben, Ladislas Ntamakiliro, Brana Gonthier, and Michel Fayol
Scientific Studies of Reading, 9:2, Apr 2005: 145-166

Abstract: The effects of different early word spelling practices on reading and spelling were studied in 145 five-year-old children. Three experimental treatments were designed to mimic different teaching activities by having children practice invented spelling (IS group), copied spelling (CS group), or invented spelling with feedback on correct orthography (ISFB group), whereas a control group only made drawings (D group). The main results indicate that (a) children in the ISFB group obtained significantly higher scores in the orthographic aspects of spelling and word reading than children in the IS and CS groups, (b) the superiority of the ISFB group did not extend to phonological aspects of reading and spelling, and (c) the performance of the IS and CS groups was not significantly better than that of the D group. These results suggest that neither invented spelling alone nor copied spelling alone is as effective as the practice of invented spelling combined with exposure to correct spelling.

We are encountering this with DD7 this year. She turns out, to my mortification, to be an atrocious speller -- at least, in her written work. Her spelling tests are nearly perfect, and the ones she misses there are clearly because she mis-heard the word and spelled a different one rather than because she misspelled the correct word. Her papers, and sentences, are riddled with errors, generally of omission but sometimes of her version of phonetic spelling. Once in a while, the teacher corrects something by writing above the word, but most of the things she brings home are raw. I shudder to think what we're going to see hanging on the wall at parent-teacher conferences.

I am NOT a fan of "invented spelling", and I think it's obvious anywhere you go that decades of teachers not correcting spelling has led to a nation of people who can't spell cat without a dictionary -- and don't know how to look it up there, either. The problem with any failed curriculum is that it doesn't take long before the kids it was tried on become the teachers of the next bunch.

I do tell DD the correct spelling of things, and I'm still trying to figure out whether laziness and speed is a large factor in the problem -- sometimes she spells the same word correctly and incorrectly in two different lines. I'm pretty sure that most of the omission errors are because she's in a hurry.

Also of interest -- I was going over her notebook full of "five sentences" writing last night, and saw a note from the teacher saying that she should have a topic sentence, three detail sentences, and a closing sentence. All this time, she's been bringing home the assignment to "write five sentences about x", and I didn't know it meant to write a paragraph, essay-style! So I explained the format to her, and she got it immediately. The teacher's correction note had no effect whatsoever, until it was explained, and then the light bulb turned on!

I think that the message being sent is that correct spelling only has a place in spelling tests, and when it comes to writing, anything goes.

Also, I don't understand why they are getting such young kids to write so much. It seems developmentally totally inappropriate, and very busyworky.

And why keep students in the dark about correct spelling. That seems cruel. Why make a child's world a more unstable place by intentionally imposing this type of uncertainty.

I have no problem with invented spelling for the rough draft but would expect a version on wall to be reasonably correct. I am going to start correcting the weekly notice/homework sheetin red though.