Because I am a little older now, I cannot remember too much about elementary school. I will share what little bit I can recall, but I will also share my own children’s experiences too. In kindergarten, I remember the alphabet letter people. They were these inflatable letters, and the class learned a new one every week, maybe? I remember reading from these skinny books about a Panda Bear. I think the Panda’s name was Buffy. I do remember the smell of the books because they were new. Other than that, I can jump to seventh and eighth grades. We still had spelling books and had weekly spelling tests. This is when I found my love of spelling!
For my three children, the language learning has been different. Miranda also had the inflatable alphabet people in kindergarten, but I don’t recall anything else as far as language learning for her. My older son, Tyler, still has trouble with his spelling and language. He originally learned to spell phonetically, and he has never been corrected in school. I get very upset at the teachers who are doing him a disservice by not correcting his spelling mistakes. I worry about Tyler because he is in sixth grade, and he still has spelling problems. I really feel like his teachers are only concerned with his sentence structure, grammatical errors, and etc. When I try to patiently show Tyler his spelling mistakes and help him, he gets mad. He tells me that I should not worry about his spelling because his teachers do not worry about it. What bothers me the most is my youngest son, Kieran, can correct Tyler’s spelling. I admit that Kieran is really advanced for his age, but he shouldn’t be teaching his older brother how to spell!
I really wonder what has happened in Tyler’s education. Did I do something wrong? Did the teachers do something wrong? I question this all the time. Even though I cannot place the blame on one specific person, I am very determined to provide my students with all the help they need in learning everything I can teach them concerning language, which includes spelling.
I'm with you on this one! I'd even go as far to say that I'm offended by spelling errors. Just a thought...does Tyler have a disability which may affect his ability to spell? or do you really think he lacked something in his educational career thus far? It's hard to pinpoint when they're older just where the disconnect happened. Keep working with him at home and continue to question his teacher about this. Maybe she needs to be informed about just how much a priority this is to you and your family.
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