Can you be educated adult and still struggle with spelling?

[Aelwydd]

I spell terribly. I am bright, academic & quite well-educated. Both of my college educated parents & my brother can't spell either. Could it be genetic? I don't think intelligence, effort or education has made much impact for any of us.

 

I use spell check carefully & immediately correct any red squiggly words. I have friends proof read papers for errors spell check may have missed. But there has always been the in class essay test to blow my cover.

 

I don't think it is cute, necessarily. But I don't think it should be a big deal. Circling fifty misspellings of rabbit in 10th grade an announcing to the class that Ananda wrote "rabit" will shame me into learning one word. Now I can confidently spell rabbit, big deal there are millions of other words to misspell. I understand that it is truly difficult for the even moderately good spellers to understand how I truly can't do it. Mocking isn't constructive.

 

I guess Ester Maria's words hit a sour chord with me because she is not a native English speaker. I immediately flashed back to a conversation with an Austrian English professor in college. I had of course tortured the English language in the in class essay. He called me out on it in front of then entire class, "This would have been a good essay, had you bothered to spell correctly." I asked him what did he mean, "bother." His answer made it clear to me that he honestly thought it was laziness. Laziness! How dare he, does he know how much time I took out to scribble possible spellings on little slips of paper to see which looked best. I was constantly passing up good words for much lesser choices simply because there was greater chance I would spell the lesser word correctly, but realize I can't spell rabbit. It is an exercise in futility.

 

I think bad spelling can be an isolated ill. It doesn't reflect on my character, I would work hard to learn to spell if I had even a modicum of aptitude. It doesn't reflect on my intelligence except in that one area. I am actualized about my spelling. I hate that people might mistake me for uneducated.

 

I don't know, Ananda, I didn't take the message from Ester Maria's post that folks who have difficulty with spelling are lazy (although some of them are, for sure). Her rationale seems to be that most poor spelling habits owe themselves to deficiencies in foundational education. Several folks have mentioned that they never received instruction in phonics, nor were taught English word roots. I'm not sure, but I think a lot of schools barely touch on things like prefix, suffix, and without that base, spelling really can become a crapshoot.

 

I agree with Ester that a lot of poor spelling these days is due to educational deficiencies, just as a lot of poor math, poor science, poor writing, etc., owe themselves to the same reasons. That doesn't mean other reasons don't exist, like dyslexia, or LDs. But she's right that a lot of bad spelling does get excused, when it really should be corrected.

 

I could be totally off, but my impression is that high school graduates from 50 years often had better spelling than many college grads, and even master's and P.h.D. students today. This is curious to me, especially given the fact that people today have a hell of a lot more tools to correct spelling than just a Webster's kept on the bookshelf.

 

Is that because we just have tons more people with LDs, coupled with a precipitous drop in those with "an affinity" for spelling? Is it because we seem to have undergone a much faster rate in the adoption of a lot more new language, thanks to globalization and technological advances? Is it because our methods of teaching spelling have changed?

 

So I have my theories as to why. What I don't get, is why so many folks don't use a simple spell-check on important documents, or have it edited by a third party. Bad spelling on MySpace or on a board or whatever is one thing, and it's hardly noticed. On academic papers and official documents, however--I'm totally flummoxed by the apparent lack of concern!

Edited March 21, 2012 by Aelwydd

[Ananda]

What about me not being a native speaker? :tongue_smilie: If anything, for not being a native speaker I should be MORE aware of some of the linguistic intricacies and the inconsistencies of English in terms of pronunciation and writing, rather than LESS, and thus appreciate MORE rather than LESS when somebody has a good written English because it was a less "natural" process for me to learn it.

 

I can see your point. I don't struggle with spelling in French. I always thought this was because French spelling is more logical than English. Perhaps, it is because I learned to write and speak French systematically and simultaneously?

 

And yet, I still believe you (general you, meaning English speakers) often blow the difficulty of your spelling out of proportions. Sometimes I have a feeling you treat it as a sort of a mystical skill than some individuals were born with and some were not, like a perfect pitch. I see it more like varying levels of natural affinity, but the vast majority of which can attain good results, exactly like in music - not everyone will have a perfect pitch, but few people cannot be musically educated because they lack affinity to that level (and yes, I have met such individuals - for one of them Latin metrics at school was a torture because she just could not get into it, no matter how much she practiced, and she could also not sing either, at all, a total inability to distinguish between different length and height of notes, etc.). Now, spelling is not music, because unlike music, everybody needs it - and yet I see so many people treating it exactly like that, as though there was this magical GREAT number of people who just "lack a feeling for it". I think individuals like that (and you may be one of them) are few and far between, definitely not all who claim to be or who mask their lack of effort and literacy by saying it is "just not their forte". THAT is what irks me, not the cases of individuals who genuinely cannot process it, like that classmate could just not get music, no. matter. what.

 

Obviously, I disagree here. Why connect spelling to literacy? I hate to keep using myself as an example, but this is personal to me. I was one of those little kids who spontaneously read at three or four. As a child, I was always one of the best readers in the class. I have always read voraciously. I don't think spelling has a thing to do with reading. Reading Watership Down didn't magically confer the ability to spell rabbit on me. To be fair, I don't know how much worse my spelling would be if I wasn't a reader. I grant that for some people, reading might improve spelling.

 

As far as effort, perhaps you could shed some light on how exactly hard work can bring about good spelling, because I truly haven't seen it. As I said, I write out various spellings to try to ascertain which might be correct. But ultimately, I guess. The only way I see effort impacting my spelling, in the moment, is if I was writing haphazardly and not paying attention to my spelling. I am sure some people spell badly because they don't care to write carefully. If I honestly don't know which of several possible spellings is correct how do you suggest I proceed.

 

I wonder if you mean some kind of systematic effort over the course of years to become a better speller. There I am at a loss as well. Spelling instruction in public school for me consisted of weekly lists of twenty words. I would always memorize the twenty words and ace the test. It didn't translate into better spelling. When I was twenty-two, I bought Spell to Write and Read. At that time SWR was what the hive mind recommended for older bad spellers. I diligently tired to follow the program, but I guess I needed more hand holding. I understand how to use phonics to decipher the pronunciation of a written word, I can't reverse the process. How do I know which of several possible phonograms for a sound to choose? What about all the exceptions? Do I have to memorize them? I honestly don't see how I can learn to spell through sheer effort. I realize others can do it, but the mechanism escapes me.

[In the Rain]

Absolutely, although people do make negative assumptions about poor spellers.

[Aelwydd]

I had an excellent education.

 

I aces every spelling test in school, but I have to work really hard at spelling. Math is easy. Science is easy. Music, dance, and history are great.

 

I had a broad, nearly classical education, I cannot spell or speak a foreign language. Some people just have a hard time with it. It does not mean they have educational deficiencies, just that their brains work differently.

 

 

I don't know, but you seem like a fine speller to me! :)

 

I think you sort of made Ester's point though. Even though you haven't mastered a foreign language, as far as spelling goes, you have received an excellent education, and so you can do it. Also, you put forth the effort to do it. Her argument is that a lot of people either do not know better, or they make excuses for poor spelling, rather than take the steps necessary to do learn better. You know better, and you work at doing better. So, you spell better.

[Magic Wand]

and so much that I agree with and have experienced with my own children, adults I know and with the dyslexic students that I tutor. I do believe that my oldest daughter, who struggles with spelling, wouldn't be as far along as she is today without the help of a program like Spell to Write and Read, which is what we used. My younger dd, who is more inclined in the area of language, would have become a great speller with or without SWR. (IMO) I don't think spelling rules are the be-all-end-all, but I do think they are tools that can help in many cases, and I find them helpful for many of the dyslexic students that I tutor.

 

I do wish remedial spelling courses were offered in high school and college for those who just didn't get a good foundation in grade school. Math and English are, why not spelling?

 

Spelling has always come easily to me, not that you would know it from my earlier post :), and I've benefitted greatly from teaching my own children. That's part of what I love about homeschooling, the opportunity to fill in the gaps in my own education! I knew how to spell words, I just never knew they "why" until I began teaching spelling.

 

I also agree with recognizing where your deficiencies are and working to accommodate them - it's true that some people are completely unaware, but what we write and say is received as a message about ourselves to the world - *I think*. Spelling obviously does not define our character or our level of intelligence, but I personally believe in striving hard to improve or excel at whatever we take on. We had a pastor who was dyslexic and many of his PP presentations were misspelled. IMO, he should have used spell-check, his wife or a friend to help him with what he was presenting to the congregation.

 

Thank you for all the input. It's quite obvious that spelling ability/inability has not affected academic and workplace success for many of you and others that you know.

[MomatHWTK]

Absolutely.

[Harriet Vane]

Yes, absolutely.

 

My dh is an actuary with both an FSA and a CFA. He worked for fifteen years to achieve those designations. He is VERY intelligent and very educated. He struggles mightily with spelling, though.

[bluemongoose]

 

But his spelling and grammar skills are weak. So if you knew him in person you'd think he was a smart guy. If you "met" him on a message board, you'd probably think he wasn't.

 

This is me and I am not proud of it! It is downright embarrassing!!! When I was in school they did not teach grammar or spelling at all. The belief at the time was that it was more important to be creative than correct. As long as you could get an interesting story or journal entry written, you would get an A. Too bad if nobody could read it! So yea, I do blame my defective education, but I also take responsibility to better myself and learn along with my children in any way I can!

[Ananda]

I don't know, Ananda, I didn't take the message from Ester Maria's post that folks who have difficulty with spelling are lazy (although some of them are, for sure). Her rationale seems to be that most poor spelling habits owe themselves to deficiencies in foundational education. Several folks have mentioned that they never received instruction in phonics, nor were taught English word roots. I'm not sure, but I think a lot of schools barely touch on things like prefix, suffix, and without that base, spelling really can become a crapshoot.

 

I think "educational deficiencies" is a fair assessment. I entered school reading, so I was never taught phonics. Although, I think I have picked some of it up. The offending "rabit" would be pronounced rA-bit (long a), if I understand correctly. I was taught word roots, and I am sure that helps with spelling.

 

It is also fair to say that as a high school student, college student or adult, it is my responsibility to remediate my educational deficiencies. Perhaps my grade school teachers failed, but the onus is on me now. I feel it is an insurmountable obstacle alone.

[Aelwydd]

Obviously, I disagree here. Why connect spelling to literacy? I hate to keep using myself as an example, but this is personal to me. I was one of those little kids who spontaneously read at three or four.

 

Ananda, two things:

 

1. A lot of poor spelling today does have to do with poor literacy. Even if that was not the particular case with you!

 

2. You, like chepyl, seem like a very good speller to me. Frankly, I'm having difficulty here seeing you as a poor speller. Your posts are well-written and correctly spelled. You appear quite competent to me.

 

Perhaps Ester Maria and you are working off of different definitions of what constitutes "poor spelling?"

 

Maybe I should include a sample of what I'm talking about when I say I see poor spelling?

 

A typical response from a fellow college student to an assignment would frequently look like this:

I think the issues with bad health care in the US are because we dont have univesal health care. We should have doctors clinics for every neighborhood so that, poor people can acess care the same as everybody else. Costs of care are extremly high and we have many children do not have care. It is unfortunete that the cant get to see a doctor.

 

Lest anyone think the above an exaggeration, that's what I saw every week in various college group assignments. Now, everyone is different, but the above example is, IMO, more frequently the result of educational deficiencies and poor literacy, than it is LDs. (Unless about 75% of my class had LDs. :tongue_smilie:)

 

SWB has spoken about how increasingly rare it is that many of her students can even turn in the most basically sound paper, that is free from grammatical errors (meaning spelling, among other things). Either as a society, we have an epidemic of LDs, and various other issues that bar good spelling (and writing, and critical thinking skills, etc.), or we have a systemic problem in teaching the concept.

 

I tend to believe it's the latter cause in most cases.

Edited March 21, 2012 by Aelwydd

[Aelwydd]

I think "educational deficiencies" is a fair assessment. I entered school reading, so I was never taught phonics. Although, I think I have picked some of it up. The offending "rabit" would be pronounced rA-bit (long a), if I understand correctly. I was taught word roots, and I am sure that helps with spelling.

 

It is also fair to say that as a high school student, college student or adult, it is my responsibility to remediate my educational deficiencies. Perhaps my grade school teachers failed, but the onus is on me now. I feel it is an insurmountable obstacle alone.

 

Well, as I said, you seem to be an excellent speller now. So, you have definitely done your homework. (Also, some teachers and instructors are just jerks. Rather than constructively point out a mistake, they use ridicule, which you know...only inspires me to carefully spell the word a$$***e when I go to write about them, lol.)

[Ananda]

Her argument is that a lot of people either do not know better, or they make excuses for poor spelling, rather than take the steps necessary to do learn better.

 

What steps do you suggest would lead to better spelling? I think perhaps people don't improve their spelling, because the honestly don't know how.

[Mrs Mungo]

First, I think someone can be educated, smart, etc and not be a natural speller. I *do* think it illuminates a lack of a good foundation in English if you can't spell, but it doesn't reflect upon intelligence or ability.

 

I have "bad" spelling for my level of education. I just can't "see" it right. However, I have learned a LOT by starting from scratch and learning phonics etc.

 

My (((poor dad))). He did a thesis correlating IQ with spelling ability way back before WWII, and I know he was troubled by my bad spelling.

 

 

My ferociously intelligent and educated OB/Gyn used to ask me to help him with spelling his notes during consultations.

 

Laura

 

Absolutely. I once worked with a brilliant, very successful lawyer who was a terrible speller. It must be some kind of mental processing thing, because he also had a truly extraordinary memory for pretty much everything *except* spelling. As in, he could remember the 9-digit number for the single document he wanted out of of a roomful of paper. It was amazing.

 

But he just could not spell, and so he always, always made sure that other people read over anything he wrote. I don't know how -- or if -- he was accommodated in school but he had a stellar academic background and his inability to spell certainly didn't seem to have slowed him down career-wise. (ETA: Just looked him up, as it's been a while. The spelling is clearly not hampering his career at ALL.)

 

To me all of these posts show education through resourcefulness. Learning phonics rules as an adult would probably be a good idea, if you can't spell. On the other hand, if a high-powered lawyer is not a good speller, then it is a good idea to pay someone to copy-edit for him. His time is too expensive to do it for himself or go back and learn phonics.

 

Yes, I believe the inability to spell is not an indication of intelligence. HOWEVER, I don't like that it sometimes becomes an excuse for not even attempting to do better.

 

I do agree that this is sometimes true.

 

He called me out on it in front of then entire class, "This would have been a good essay, had you bothered to spell correctly." I asked him what did he mean, "bother." His answer made it clear to me that he honestly thought it was laziness. Laziness! How dare he, does he know how much time I took out to scribble possible spellings on little slips of paper to see which looked best. I was constantly passing up good words for much lesser choices simply because there was greater chance I would spell the lesser word correctly, but realize I can't spell rabbit. It is an exercise in futility.

 

I'm confused as to why you would do this. Buy a dictionary and use it. Why try to determine which looks better by sight? If you looked it up every time, then you'd eventually remember how to spell it. I think that does actually smack of academic laziness.

[Tutor]

Certinly.

 

Certanly.

 

Sertinly.

 

Sertainly.

 

Yes.

[ElizabethB]

You can fix it! I was a good reader but a poor speller until I started tutoring remedial reading with phonics. After my first few years of teaching and learning the sound/symbol patterns of English and learning phonetic spelling patterns, I noticed that I was misspelling far fewer words!!

 

When I first started tutoring 18 years ago, spell check was not automatic. You had to run spell check after the fact. Before tutoring with phonics, I averaged about 6 misspelled words per typewritten page.

 

After a year or two of tutoring, my average was about 1 misspelled word per page. A few years later, about one word every 2 pages. Now, I rarely misspell a word.

 

My daughter has surpassed my husband's spelling level and I expect her to surpass mine my the time she reaches high school since she is getting a stronger foundation in phonics and phonetic spelling rules from the beginning.

 

Everything I have learned is in my phonics and spelling lessons.

[Mrs Mungo]

What steps do you suggest would lead to better spelling? I think perhaps people don't improve their spelling, because the honestly don't know how.

 

Read about phonics rules and "rule-breaking" words. There are many free websites that can help with this, for example:

 

http://www.spelling.hemscott.net/#advice

 

http://www.write-better-english.com/How-to-Improve-Your-Spelling.aspx

 

If you aren't sure of a word, than take the time to look it up. Eventually, you will remember, *and* it will improve your spelling of other words.

 

You could also try something like Vocabulary from Classical Roots. That series deals with root words, prefixes, suffixes, etc.

[Aelwydd]

What steps do you suggest would lead to better spelling? I think perhaps people don't improve their spelling, because the honestly don't know how.

 

I think you're right that many folks don't know the steps. I don't know the answer to curing everyone's spelling deficiencies. I can only say that when I encounter my own deficiencies or ignorance in a given subject or area, I do some research about it, so I can figure out the best way for me to approach it.

 

I'm a visual learner, so that tends to inform my approach in learning something. For me, phonics was very helpful, because I saw how a word got broken down. Honestly, reading helped me a lot. And consulting a dictionary when I had to write a paper!

 

For other people, phonics would probably help, but maybe for an auditory person, hearing how the word parts are sounded out and seeing it at the same time might work. Maybe for a tactile learner, picking up a physical dictionary and looking at a word, or practicing pronunciation and concentrating on how that word "feels" on the mouth, the tongue, the throat.

 

In all three cases, I think an etymological approach proves helpful. If you don't know the origin of a word, or the language from which it is derived, it really makes it difficult to know how to pronounce it, much less spell it.

 

You would have LOL'd at my seventh-grade self coming upon the words rapport and rendezvous for the first time.

 

I agree with a PP that it would be nice if there were remedial spelling classes offered at the CC or university level!

[Mrs Mungo]

I hate to keep using myself as an example, but this is personal to me. I was one of those little kids who spontaneously read at three or four. As a child, I was always one of the best readers in the class. I have always read voraciously. I don't think spelling has a thing to do with reading. Reading Watership Down didn't magically confer the ability to spell rabbit on me. To be fair, I don't know how much worse my spelling would be if I wasn't a reader. I grant that for some people, reading might improve spelling.

 

One of SWB's lectures on phonics actually includes information on how many children who taught themselves to read wind up in a reading slump later on because of the lack of phonics instruction.

[kitten18]

After reading this thread, I'm thinking there are probably about three levels of spellers.

 

1. Natural spellers, spelling is easy. They can see words in their head.

 

2. Average spellers. If they have a strong phonics foundation these type of people can probably become good/very good spellers.

 

3. Those with dyslexia or another LD that impacts their spelling. They can be taught phonics and work really hard but will probably have to find additional ways to compensate for their spelling struggles (spell check, dictionary, proof readers, etc.).

 

 

Just some random thoughts, I could be totally wrong.:tongue_smilie:

[bnrmom]

I taught myself to read, don't remember learning phonics, read voraciously, and spelling is very easy for me. Both of my kids taught themselves to read - my younger son naturally "gets" phonics and spelling, my older son does not.

 

My little sister tested higher than me on an IQ test when we were kids, and she can't spell her way out of a paper bag.

 

Go figure.

[Jenny in Atl]

Yes, the dictionary is my best friend. :D

 

I come from a long line of horrible spellers, all of whom were very well educated (much better than I). Thankfully, both my kids can spell! Must be the dh's genes... My oldest is an amazing speller, she just sees the words, while I struggle to get all the alphabet soup down on paper. :tongue_smilie:

[Ananda]

Ananda, two things:

 

1. A lot of poor spelling today does have to do with poor literacy. Even if that was not the particular case with you!

 

Oh, I agree that poor literacy is the case for some. It is, but one piece of the puzzle. I think some people spell poorly because they are illiterate, or because they don't read. Some people are bad spellers because they don't think spelling is relevant so they don't bother out of apathy. Some people have bad spelling because they are lazy and don't bother to figure out correct spellings. For others, like me . . . I honestly don't know why I can't spell, or how to fix it.

 

2. You, like chepyl, seem like a very good speller to me. Frankly, I'm having difficulty here seeing you as a poor speller. Your posts are well-written and correctly spelled. You appear quite competent to me.

 

My posts are correctly spelled because I have spell check. Every time I finish typing a misspelled word, it is underlined in red. I correct all red words.

 

Perhaps Ester Maria and you are working off of different definitions of what constitutes "poor spelling?"

 

Maybe I should include a sample of what I'm talking about when I say I see poor spelling?

 

A typical response from a fellow college student to an assignment would frequently look like this:

I think the issues with bad health care in the US are because we dont have univesal health care. We should have doctors clinics for every neighborhood so that, poor people can acess care the same as everybody else. Costs of care are extremly high and we have many children do not have care. It is unfortunete that the cant get to see a doctor.

 

Lest anyone think the above an exaggeration, that's what I saw every week in various college group assignments. Now, everyone is different, but the above example is, IMO, more frequently the result of educational deficiencies and poor literacy, than it is LDs. (Unless about 75% of my class had LDs. :tongue_smilie:)

 

Most of the offending words in your bad spelling example are missing apostrophes. I consider adding the apostrophe to conjunctions & possessives to be a matter of grammar. I don't struggle with grammar. I am sure many do, especially those that fall into the illiterate, apathetic or lazy groups. Apart from the grammar mistakes, I could have made any of the spelling errors in your example. "Acess" was misspelled in your example. I realized it was probably misspelled, so I typed it below to see if it would be underlined in red. It was. I tried "acsess", "accsess" and "access" one wasn't underlined in red, if they had all been in read I would have tried configurations with 'k's and 't's. I care enough to use spell check. Spell check isn't always there to help.

 

SWB has spoken about how increasingly rare it is that many of her students can even turn in the most basically sound paper, that is free from grammatical errors (meaning spelling, among other things). Either as a society, we have an epidemic of LDs, and various other issues that bar good spelling (and writing, and critical thinking skills, etc.), or we have a systemic problem in teaching the concept.

 

I tend to believe it's the latter cause in most cases.

 

Again, I agree that the schools are negligent in teaching grammar and spelling among other things. The schools should teach the basics better; they don't. What should the high school student do when he is faced with the fact that he can't spell and society expects it of him?

[Mrs Mungo]

After reading this thread, I'm thinking there are probably about three levels of spellers.

 

1. Natural spellers, spelling is easy. They can see words in their head.

 

2. Average spellers. If they have a strong phonics foundation these type of people can probably become good/very good spellers.

 

3. Those with dyslexia or another LD that impacts their spelling. They can be taught phonics and work really hard but will probably have to find additional ways to compensate for their spelling struggles (spell check, dictionary, proof readers, etc.).

 

 

Just some random thoughts, I could be totally wrong.:tongue_smilie:

 

I think you're right.

[chepyl]

Ananda, two things:

 

1. A lot of poor spelling today does have to do with poor literacy. Even if that was not the particular case with you!

 

2. You, like chepyl, seem like a very good speller to me. Frankly, I'm having difficulty here seeing you as a poor speller. Your posts are well-written and correctly spelled. You appear quite competent to me.

 

Perhaps Ester Maria and you are working off of different definitions of what constitutes "poor spelling?"

 

Maybe I should include a sample of what I'm talking about when I say I see poor spelling?

 

A typical response from a fellow college student to an assignment would frequently look like this:

I think the issues with bad health care in the US are because we dont have univesal health care. We should have doctors clinics for every neighborhood so that, poor people can acess care the same as everybody else. Costs of care are extremly high and we have many children do not have care. It is unfortunete that the cant get to see a doctor.

 

Lest anyone think the above an exaggeration, that's what I saw every week in various college group assignments. Now, everyone is different, but the above example is, IMO, more frequently the result of educational deficiencies and poor literacy, than it is LDs. (Unless about 75% of my class had LDs. :tongue_smilie:)

 

SWB has spoken about how increasingly rare it is that many of her students can even turn in the most basically sound paper, that is free from grammatical errors (meaning spelling, among other things). Either as a society, we have an epidemic of LDs, and various other issues that bar good spelling (and writing, and critical thinking skills, etc.), or we have a systemic problem in teaching the concept.

 

I tend to believe it's the latter cause in most cases.

 

Spell check is my friend, autocorrect is my worst enemy. My previous post took me a while to type. I think carefully about what I write, to be able to use words I know I can spell when on my phone. Even on the conputer, my written vocabulary is smaller than my spoken vocabulary. I don't write what I can't spell. ;)

 

You should see my written notes from college. I am sure they will make you cringe. ;)

[ElizabethB]

For others, like me . . . I honestly don't know why I can't spell, or how to fix it.

 

Make a list of the next 100 words that you misspell but are caught by spell check and we'll help you figure out the rule/reason/pattern for those misspellings.

[Plucky]

Of course! Both my step-fathers were bad spellers, one was an AF pilot/scientist, and the other is a brilliant engineer.

 

I do think spelling is important. My ds said his friends would often ask him to check their codes when they weren't working and 99% of the time it was a spelling problem.

[Ananda]

Interesting. I never hit a reading slump, I think I picked up phonics for reading intuitively. Is it possible that reading well as a young child might actually hinder learning spelling? I will have to think about that.

[Mrs Mungo]

Most of the offending words in your bad spelling example are missing apostrophes. I consider adding the apostrophe to conjunctions & possessives to be a matter of grammar. I don't struggle with grammar.

 

 

I think the issues with bad health care in the US are because we dont have univesal health care. We should have doctors clinics for every neighborhood so that, poor people can acess care the same as everybody else. Costs of care are extremly high and we have many children do not have care. It is unfortunete that the cant get to see a doctor.

 

The red words are misspelled words. The blue words are missing apostrophes. The orange words seem to be in incomplete thought; it is missing something. The punctuation is pretty atrocious, but that isn't the point, so I can ignore it for the moment.

[ocelotmom]

What's the concensus?

 

Having not read any other responses... yes. Some people's brains just don't work in such a way that spelling comes naturally.

 

However, I think that educated adults who struggle with spelling realize that it is a problem for them and that it can influence how others perceive them, and they therefore make an effort to compensate through proofreading, spellchecking, and soforth in all but the most informal communications. (Ideally, that is. I know people who have had plenty of verified formal education who don't particularly seem to care.)

Edited March 21, 2012 by ocelotmom

[Aelwydd]

For others, like me . . . I honestly don't know why I can't spell, or how to fix it.

 

But you do do a good job of spelling and fixing it! Is the issue actually a lack of self-confidence that you're a good writer? Because you are a good writer. I get that you're having to do a lot of work to turn out a correctly spelled bit of writing, but work is part of writing well anyway. I never found spelling particularly challenging, but I still have to proof read and edit my writing all the time. Errors are going to happen.

 

I figure the same is true of math. I have to really work at math to do well at it. Like, twice or three times harder than your average math person. However, just because others get math easier than I do doesn't mean they don't have to still work at it, and check their work.

 

I don't know, but has anyone just mentioned mere sloppiness in work habits as a cause for poor spelling? Maybe it's that simple in many cases. They just don't have stringent standards when it comes to making sure their work is clean and presentable before submitting it for an assignment or for the workplace.

 

 

 

Most of the offending words in your bad spelling example are missing apostrophes. I consider adding the apostrophe to conjunctions & possessives to be a matter of grammar. I don't struggle with grammar. I am sure many do, especially those that fall into the illiterate, apathetic or lazy groups. Apart from the grammar mistakes, I could have made any of the spelling errors in your example. "Acess" was misspelled in your example. I realized it was probably misspelled, so I typed it below to see if it would be underlined in red. It was. I tried "acsess", "accsess" and "access" one wasn't underlined in red, if they had all been in read I would have tried configurations with 'k's and 't's. I care enough to use spell check. Spell check isn't always there to help.

 

I know the apostrophes are poor grammar--I'm just using that as an example of how poor spelling is part and parcel of overall poor writing skills for many people.

 

The words misspelled were access, universal, extremely, and unfortunate. And guess what? I regularly misspell a lot of words like that too! I just start typing fast, and then I go back and see, oops...I made a mistake. In fact, I regularly forget the second "s" in misspell, lol. The little red lines do a lot to catch that error.

 

My point is, you should feel really good about your spelling skills. Even if you don't initially catch things, you've developed good compensating habits to catch them later, and make sure you correct them. And what you are judged by, in terms of spelling, is the finished product--not the rough draft! And thank goodness for that, or I'd have been thrown off the island long ago for my egregious grammatical and spelling mistakes long ago. :D

 

 

What should the high school student do when he is faced with the fact that he can't spell and society expects it of him?

 

That's a good question. I would say write carefully and carry a big dictionary. ;)

[Aelwydd]

Certinly.

 

Certanly.

 

Sertinly.

 

Sertainly.

 

Yes.

 

Si. :lol:

[ElizabethB]

Here's a thread for ideas for improving spelling:

 

http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=360881

[Ester Maria]

Wow, I went off for a few hours to teach and the discussion got lively meanwhile. :D

 

Rebekah has made most of my points (thank you :)), just a few more comments, sorry if I repeat what she has pointed out already:

Wow. So an adult who is successful, but can't spell, just happened to "manage" to become successful despite not being properly and well educated?

 

That has got to be one of the biggest stereotypes I have ever heard. I suggest you read the book The Dyslexic Advantage. It might open your mind to some other possibilities as to why an otherwise successful person can't spell.

I read it.

 

In fact, I will tell you something else, too. Most of my attitudes about education have very little to do with cultivated ignorance on my part (in terms of neurology accessible for laymen, different learning theories, etc.). I get constantly accused on these boards of being "dogmatic" regarding some of my attitudes while at the same time I have read most of the standard literature you all have. I just interpret it differently, or conclude that those particular descriptions can fit a very tiny subset of people who cannot spell while they get misapplied to a lot of others, or in some cases do not see much merit in some of those frameworks offered to think of these issues (because I think some important distinctions get blurred). It is possible for me to read the exact same literature as you do and reach different conclusions about things I see in practice. :)

 

What y'all interpret as my "dogmatism" are very often conclusions I have come to after having opened my mind A LOT MORE than you would expect. But not that much that it would fall out and not recognize plain old illiteracy and lopsided education when it sees it. Are those the only possible cases of bad spelling? Again, like I said initially, no. Not all cases are like that and not all cases can be simplified to that, a brain is a mysterious thing and there are people who do have genuine difficulties with some specific tasks. But very often, that is not the case and they get "romanticized" and excused as "quirks of an otherwise very educated and intelligent adult". I can think of a person or two whom I would describe that way, but those are our anecdotal cases. I can think of a lot more people who are just plain illiterate and think that, because something is hard for them, they should work at it exactly the same as everybody else and get whatever results and "it will be good enough". I do not take that approach. Rather, I take an approach of investing more (time and effort) into those areas.

 

A lot of adults who supposedly "could not" do some things made up for their deficiencies in all areas by consciously focusing on them.

I learned English as a foreign language, there was no time for any kind of systematic phonics instruction (I had no idea what phonics WAS until I moved to the US), we learned the pronunciation of each word separately and rules were typically something to infer, rather than be specifically taught, if you wanted to read past the classroom vocabulary. Nobody ever explained the logic of the English spelling to me nor to my classmates, I never had a separate spelling test (dictation, yes, but never a specifically spelling test nor were we asked to orally spell things), and all of us, within the limits of the English we actively know, can spell as well as you guys can. I have seen simply too many cases of anglophone children, educated in English more than two periods weekly, unable to spell that basic level of English consistently well (really - ESLish mistakes!), to believe they were ALL somehow genuinely impaired... yet all were excused by "learning differences", in numbers unfathomable to me.

 

And because of that English teaching, I was pronunciation challenged. Because I did not even HEAR the differences between some vowels and spoke English with half the vowels it actually has. How did I work on that as an adult? I started to learn, actively tune my ears into it, asked for a help of a dialect coach :D, and while I still have a different intonation and some accent issues, my general pronunciation is actually pretty darn good now because I can individuate the things I had no idea existed before. And if I really, really wanted - or estimated it a worthy use of my time, which I do not - I could probably fix the intonation completely and sound exactly like any of you, and only out myself with some random syntax and vocab mistakes (but again, if I worked really hard on that, I could have even those pretty much die out). That is the point at which I draw some of my personal lines and say that speaking authentically just does not matter to me so much. But 1) I did improve, 2) I improved in areas in which I made minimal to no distinction before, 3) I improved to a level at which I do not have great noticeable difficulties (people understand me when I speak and they know exactly whether I mean fit or feet, even if it is a distinction I did not observe the first time I heard it - but I reshaped my habits, consciously, with some effort). My example has to do with sounds rather than with the visuals of writing, but you can effectively say the same thing about that. Those who want, find a way - those who do not want, find an excuse. I do not think people should be able to spell every word in the English language. Should they be able to "spell", in a more loose sense of the word, as in, not misspell the basic layer of the language a typical native speaker of their education uses? Heck yes, one should be literate in one's native language even if it is difficult to get there, barring those "few and far between" exceptions that I did allow an exception for - after a lot of effort which clearly demonstrated it IS such an exception, not just a case of something hard, but doable.

Edited March 21, 2012 by Ester Maria

[Ananda]

I think the issues with bad health care in the US are because we dont have univesal health care. We should have doctors clinics for every neighborhood so that, poor people can acess care the same as everybody else. Costs of care are extremly high and we have many children do not have care. It is unfortunete that the cant get to see a doctor.

 

The red words are misspelled words. The blue words are missing apostrophes. The orange words seem to be in incomplete thought; it is missing something. The punctuation is pretty atrocious, but that isn't the point, so I can ignore it for the moment.

 

The example is badly written on many fronts. I would never have written it, I don't struggle with grammar, punctuation & writing coherently. "The" for "they" is probably a typo, if it isn't, then, no, I don't spell that badly. That leaves "univesal", obviously it has an r; I might spell it universel. As I said access gave me trouble as well. "Extremely" took three tries before I guessed the correct spelling. Unfortunate I got correct first try but just as easily could have ended it nete. I also would have had trouble with "issues" or "neighborhood" which were spelled correctly in the example.

 

I don't know if I should complete for worst spelling. I have seen writing like: "I no peepul hoo rite werss then I du" or some such nonsense. I think those people probably have a learning disability. My point is that people can otherwise write well, yet still struggle with spelling.

[Mrs Mungo]

I figure the same is true of math. I have to really work at math to do well at it. Like, twice or three times harder than your average math person. However, just because others get math easier than I do doesn't mean they don't have to still work at it, and check their work.

 

 

I think this is a great point. My bank isn't going to have sympathy or think I'm quirky if I say, "hey, I majored in literature, and you can't expect me to be great at math." My bank expects me to keep my checking account balanced.

[Mrs Mungo]

My point is that people can otherwise write well, yet still struggle with spelling.

 

Struggle? Yes. Be *unable* to correct it? No, there are plenty of ways to find the correct answer. That's my point.

[LizzyBee]

What's the concensus?

 

I haven't read all the pages of other responses, but absolutely yes. IQ is not related to spelling ability. There are books upon books written about dyslexic geniuses who read, spell, and write with great difficulty in spite of their other talents and skills. One of my nephews is profoundly dyslexic and academically gifted. His writing looks like gibberish in spite of his excellent education in a school just for academically gifted dyslexics. He has gone all the way through an Orton-Gillingham based curriculum more than once and he still can't spell. In spite of his struggles, he has been accepted to a highly rated engineering program and will start college in the fall. Two of my kids are also dyslexic, but not as severely as my nephew. They will never win the Scripps spelling bee, but they have learned to spell decently.

Edited March 21, 2012 by LizzyBee

[Ananda]

But you do do a good job of spelling and fixing it! Is the issue actually a lack of self-confidence that you're a good writer? Because you are a good writer. I get that you're having to do a lot of work to turn out a correctly spelled bit of writing, but work is part of writing well anyway. I never found spelling particularly challenging, but I still have to proof read and edit my writing all the time. Errors are going to happen.

 

I understand this, I write fine. I manage spelling when I have resources to help me: spell check, a dictionary to a certain extent, a friend who can spell. I guess I see it like doing math with a calculator, it can be a tool or a crutch. I rely on spell check to spell correctly. If assigned an essay to write over a weekend, I would spell correctly only because I have spell check; I have better spellers to help me proof read; I have resources to look spellings up. If instead I were given and in class essay with only by brain as a resource, it would be poorly spelled. I would never be the person to misspell when I could help it. But when all I have is the blue book and my own deficient faculties, not going to happen.

 

I figure the same is true of math. I have to really work at math to do well at it. Like, twice or three times harder than your average math person. However, just because others get math easier than I do doesn't mean they don't have to still work at it, and check their work.

 

Yes, I agree. What would you think of the person who could only do math with a calculator.

 

As far as sloppiness, I am sure that is the case for some. I think that is what people mean when they say the bad speller is just lazy or doesn't care to spell correctly.

 

And what you are judged by, in terms of spelling, is the finished product--not the rough draft!

 

That's a good question. I would say write carefully and carry a big dictionary. ;)

 

When the high school student is presented with the writing portion of the SAT, will he be allowed to bring his dictionary? If he were, would he have time to use it and still write a good essay?

[Mrs Mungo]

Yes, I agree. What would you think of the person who could only do math with a calculator.

 

But, saying "I can't spell" and not using a dictionary, etc is more like refusing to use a calculator, despite making constant calculation errors.

 

When the high school student is presented with the writing portion of the SAT, will he be allowed to bring his dictionary? If he were, would he have time to use it and still write a good essay?

 

No. But, if you use a dictionary every *other* day of your school career, then you will be less likely to make mistakes than you would have otherwise. You won't get counted down on your SAT essay for a few spelling errors, only if there are so many that is becomes a distraction.

Edited March 21, 2012 by Mrs Mungo

[zimom]

A few weeks ago I picked my son up from Georgia Tech for the weekend. Not Harvard, but a very good school. The kid is VERY bright, especially with math, science, a good writer, etc.

 

On the ride home I asked him to give his 8 y.o. sister her spelling test. He had to look at her word list to verify the spelling of some of the words to grade it for her. :).

[Ester Maria]

I understand this, I write fine. I manage spelling when I have resources to help me: spell check, a dictionary to a certain extent, a friend who can spell. I guess I see it like doing math with a calculator, it can be a tool or a crutch. I rely on spell check to spell correctly. If assigned an essay to write over a weekend, I would spell correctly only because I have spell check; I have better spellers to help me proof read; I have resources to look spellings up. If instead I were given and in class essay with only by brain as a resource, it would be poorly spelled. I would never be the person to misspell when I could help it. But when all I have is the blue book and my own deficient faculties, not going to happen.

And that is exactly how it should be. You know you lack in some area, you presumably did all in your reasonable power to correct it, it did not work, so you organized your life to accomodate for it and the results are typically as those of any other person. If, in spite of that, somebody puts you into a situation you cannot handle well - you cannot handle it well, and that is fine, we all have limitations.

 

No moral fault in my eyes. :)

[Danestress]

I received reasonably good private education in my k-12 years. I was well prepared for college. I had been well taught in the art of research paper and essay writing, had done quite well in the sciences, took advanced mathematics classes, and loved my literature classes. I have a masters degree in a foreign language. I am naturally curious, and was a very strong student. I don't necessarily that makes me "educated" in the best sense of the word, but for my generation, I would say my parents managed to get me a much better than average education.

 

But I struggle with pretty basic spelling. I used to struggle over the word "fence" every month when I wrote the check to a chain link fence rental company. Seriously. Fence. I struggle with words like "sauce." I want to spell it "sause."

 

My sister is hyper intelligent. But she struggles to find nouns when speaking. Ironically, she has a masters in linguistics, and she's very literate and wordy. Any time she edits something I write, she puts me to shame. But when she is talking to me, she can't find the nouns. Recently she had to carefully describe the little round plate you put a tea cup in, because she couldn't think of the word "saucer." She's been this way for years, and it doesn't seem like she is declining cognitively.

 

So I tend to think there is just something going on with our brains. Sometimes I feel sort of panicked about it - that I am just mentally failing. But honestly, I am not worse now then I was in my 30s. And in fact, I spelled "fence" correctly in this post without having to think hard about it!

[beaners]

Absolutely, although people do make negative assumptions about poor spellers.

 

I was going to say something similar. You can be educated, but not everyone will assume you are educated. Some will assume the opposite, and all the counterexamples in the world will not convince them otherwise.

 

I don't think poor spelling is a moral failing, but I also don't encourage it. Hearing parents lament their own lack of spelling ability, ability in math, or athleticism as an excuse for their children will make my tongue bleed.

[Bluegoat]

I was a terrible speller in school - I'm fairly broadly educated though, at least for a 21st century North American. I would say it is a grammar school deficit - I did have some phonics training and spelling words, but I had no interest in learning those things. I was a bit of a nightmare student in a way and I don't think I ever bothered to learn anything I wasn't interested in for longer than I needed to pass a test. And even then I really did not care about passing tests.

 

I've improved my spelling a lot as an adult, but it is still rather uneven. There are a few words in particular that I spell wrong every time - I don't seem to be able to hold a picture of the correct spelling in my mind. At least now though I know to check those words carefully.

[Aelwydd]

I understand this, I write fine. I manage spelling when I have resources to help me: spell check, a dictionary to a certain extent, a friend who can spell. I guess I see it like doing math with a calculator, it can be a tool or a crutch. I rely on spell check to spell correctly. If assigned an essay to write over a weekend, I would spell correctly only because I have spell check; I have better spellers to help me proof read; I have resources to look spellings up. If instead I were given and in class essay with only by brain as a resource, it would be poorly spelled. I would never be the person to misspell when I could help it. But when all I have is the blue book and my own deficient faculties, not going to happen.

 

Well, you might think of it as a crutch. I think of it as you caring enough about your writing to take the time to use these tools. At the end of the day, if I'm working with you, your quality is what makes consider you to be a proficient speller, because you ensure your words are correct, even if it doesn't happen the first try.

 

Everybody has areas of weakness. The difference is that some, like you, take effort to compensate for them, so that the quality of your work does not suffer. Others may be unaware. Others may know, but not understand how to effectively address these weaknesses.

 

And still others may be aware, but simply expect others to accept such poor quality of work, because it doesn't come easy to them.

 

 

Yes, I agree. What would you think of the person who could only do math with a calculator. . .

 

When the high school student is presented with the writing portion of the SAT, will he be allowed to bring his dictionary? If he were, would he have time to use it and still write a good essay?

 

 

I think Mrs. Mungo answered these quite well. I agree with her.

[Aelwydd]

Ester Maria, I appreciate you sharing your perspective as someone learning English as a second language.

 

I'm curious--did you find the differences between American English and British/ Commonwealth spelling to be challenging?

 

Because I have to tell you, the first time I read a British novel, and came upon words like sceptic and colour and civilisation and tyre and so on, I kept getting tripped up! ;)

[SailorMom]

Esther Maria - have you ever had a child with dyslexia? I can't remember....

I agree that labels are thrown around way too often (imho - add, adhd, aspbergers, etc.), but there are genuine dyslexics.

My son - even with a dictionary - can't copy from it well enough to get the spelling right. He'll look at the word in the dictionary, look at his paper to write, and the letters are already all jumbled up (or many are left out).

I do believe I have to give him as many tools as I can for him to be successful, but I've learned from him not to judge others' intelligence by anything as superficial as spelling and grammar.

[Ester Maria]

I'm curious--did you find the differences between American English and British/ Commonwealth spelling to be challenging?

 

Because I have to tell you, the first time I read a British novel, and came upon words like sceptic and colour and civilisation and tyre and so on, I kept getting tripped up! ;)

I actually started out with the British spelling and extremely fake pseudo-British pronunciation, LOL. ;) It is very possible that I still have a touch of that left, although I try to be consistent within one norm. The most difficult thing to get rid of was double Ls in the past (traveLed rather than travelled), that used to just hurt my eyes plus it is sooooo inconsistent with any logic, but okay, I got over it for the most part.

 

What I find more challenging are vocabulary and idiomatic differences, as well as some of the sounds.

Esther Maria - have you ever had a child with dyslexia? I can't remember....

I agree that labels are thrown around way too often (imho - add, adhd, aspbergers, etc.), but there are genuine dyslexics.

Of course there are. There are genuine examples of all of that.

I believe my middle daughter to be a perfect example of a "could have been falsely diagnosed" child. She is completely normal, yet as a child you could have labeled her with anything you wanted because she was a bit off and took longer to grow out of some things, and add to it some sensitivities on the biochem level (foods and such), there you get a mess. She was a "does not fit in exactly, but if you want, you can put her into that box" case.

 

As regards specifically dyslexia, nope, but she has a weird thing about Hebrew in mixing and inventing letters which are not there. That, however, is more due to the "guessing nature" of the written form of that language itself than to any cognitive differences. She grew out of most of that too, with lots of practice.

[cindergretta]

She is completely normal, yet as a child

 

Just as an FYI, children with any kind of diagnosis are normal, too. Your child is typical. My child is not typical. The use of "normal" isn't really acceptable. :D

[TranquilMind]

What's the concensus?

Certainly, and it is "consensus". ;)

 

It just means the person has a little "glitch" and that spelling doesn't come automatically to him. We are all like that in some ways. I know a truly brilliant guy who cannot tell his left from his right without stopping to think about it for a second. It just doesn't come instantly, but some other things do.