To think that teachers should be able to punctuate

I never learned the parts of a sentence. I have no idea what a conjugated verb is or a past imperfect yet I'm sure I use them all the time. I only learned what an adverb was until I start teaching but oddly I'd been using them as long as I could remember.

Do we really need to drill useless information into our children?

If we change our method of spelling and punctuation life would be so much easier and make so much more sense. We could drop the apostrophes and use the meaning of the sentence instead.

Couldn't we change phonics so the a single letter gave the short sound and double gave the long sound. Then just use digraphs for sh, th and ch

Wudnt reeding and riiting bee soo much eesier.

I know where the step is

It is interesting that educational research shows that reading has no relationship with how well we spell.
Many years ago, doing a stint of long supply teaching in a primary school, I taught handwriting by using phonic strings as they appear in words. This supported the learning of spelling, rather than practicing the round shapes and straight shapes. This might be common in primary schools now. X

My dad always maintained he had to sit down and learn by heart every word that he did know how to spell correctly. It never came naturally to him. However, he also used his very logical brain and the Latin and French and Italian he'd learned, to help him spell English words. As I do (well, not the Italian and I'm not sure Spanish helps at all, with its perfect simplicity of spelling), and I've always been a good speller. I do have to think about it but I can usually tell what is a 'correct' spelling and what isn't.

My best friend from school couldn't spell for toffee. She was such a talented non-speller that she could miss-spell the same word in different ways in the same sentence and not notice even if she checked. She got a two-one degree in English even so.

Neither of them were dyslexic.

Sorry about the delay in replying Charleygirl been out a lot. I agree with you, I think the school were making excuses. Mind you we worked really hard with her spelling tests but it made no difference and she was a reader from an early age. She still reads more than the rest of us put together and still can't spell.

Slainte

Double matured Dalwhinnie it is then

I'll join you there Vamps and mine's a single malt please Bags

Think you'd better take your pillow and duvet to the naughty step Vamps you are being a very naught girl lady person

Keep it up, vamp. A bit of piss-taking is good for health. Would you like wine or beer with the next naughty step snack?

OK I'm going back to the naughty step

My friend told me that each time I misuse an apostrophe a puppy die's. Oooops there goe's another couple

Oh Granny23, someone else who remembers Dick and Dora! My bug bear is apostrophes. Missing, and worse still the inappropriate ones. Can't go past a notice, poster or menu without commenting on them. Fish and chip's anyone?

I agree about MFL but I was quite capable of teaching all the other subjects at primary level. I'm much more concerned that some secondary teachers are not specialists in the subject they teach.

I am afraid I was the pedant who used to correct the teacher's corrections in my DCs' schoolbooks. I still have a copy of "First Aid in English" upstairs (I actually bought it with my pocket money when I was in my teens). [bluestocking emoticon]!

I get very sad when it seems to be acceptable for our children to have second best. How wonderful it would be if science, maths, music, modern languages etc had by law to be taught to primary children by someone with a degree in the subject.

I have seen children in primary schools learning French from a CD with the pronunciation wrong and a teacher who did not realise this.

It seems that we accept that anyone with a smattering of knowledge is good enough to teach a subject to primary children. Not so in the Montessori system where subjects are taught by specialists at all ages.

Sorry petallus...I'll take myself back to the naughty step because I made you panic

No it isn't petallus! Vampirequeen was responding to Aka's post of 18.02 and it was a joke - don't panic!

Oh my God, another one of those threads!

Are we talking mental or physical age? Thank for the tea and biscuits.

A very good point Bags . As a Maths Advisory Teacher I was horrified by the lack of mathematical ability in the average teacher, though it was even worse in the population at large.

And how did he manage to become a 'qualified' primary school teacher in the first place? Qualified to do what, one wonders.

However, during my years as a school governor (1980s), when I was involved in teacher interviews for the school, I was horrified to find that most (yes, most) applicants, usually above a certain age, did not even have a basic maths O level pass to their name and yet were considered 'qualified' to teach maths to primary school kids. I did not feel confident of their grasp of mathematical concepts.

Swings and roundabouts.

I am not Lynn Truss, believe me, and recognise that language develops.

This chap may have excellent people management skills, but a major part of his role is to teach in a primary setting, where the children will be learning spelling and grammar. If he is unable to get this right himself, how can he put himself forward to teach this to children?

That depends how long you've been sitting there....it's a minute for every year of your life vamps

Or even spell "together"!

I think our writing style is always influenced by what we read, however much our English teachers try to drum "correct" grammar into us. Heaven help those who rely on some papers, they will never be able to spell or put three words togethr so that they make sense.