Aug
With the growing popularity of texting among children here in the Philippines, one of the areas of conern of the Department of Education (DepEd) is the decline in their spelling proficiency. Several studies show that Filipino children now are poor in spelling.
A lecture in Britain discussed the acceptability of spelling errors. Common spelling mistakes should be accepted into everyday use, not corrected, a lecturer has said. To further this topic a little more,
Ken Smith of Bucks New University says the most common mistakes should be accepted as “variant spellings”.
He lists the 10 most commonly misspelt words, which include “arguement” for “argument” and “twelth” for “twelfth”.
However, I think his suggestion is not feasible in my point of view. Students’ mistakes should be corrected as early as possible. Why? Simple. Spelling errors are like diseases. They can be prevented or controlled. These preventive measures could be in the form of immediate corrections on errors in spelling. In Philippine culture, a child who does not do good (based on standards of etiquette) is told “Bad yan, wag mo nang gagawin” (That’s bad, don’t do that again).
Similarly, the behavior of elders with respect to correction of errors in either attitude, behavior or spelling of Filipino children are usually addressed instantaneously. It’s just that when Filipino children reach 13 and above, elders (even teachers) find it difficult to correct their errors because it has already become part of their system. Being wrong in spelling (kudos to texting) is an acceptable practice in the society which is translated in academic performance. Now, to remedy this, perhaps it’s best to discourage pupils and students below 16 years of age (the typical age of a Filipino student in 4th year high school) to use a cell phone and text till he drops.
Ken Smith’s theory of “accepting variants in spelling” might do more damage than good in my view. Although as part of his lecture, he argued that why is it that there are some terms like judgement whose variation “judgment” is accepted. Ok, let us consider that setting examples like these commonly misspelled words have been accepted before. How about if we accept the term “thoery” as variation of “theory” or maybe accept the term “celfon” as variation of “cell phone”. The problem here is the structure of word. In texting, you are allowed to use contracted words, intentionally shortened to save time and space. If we allow these terms for example (since they have been commonly misspelled in the past), then I think we better come up with a new dictionary. In conclusion, I do not approve of the proposal.
How about you? Do you tolerate your child’s bad spelling?
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Tags: Education, education research, personal, spelling problems, Wrong spelling
6 Responses so far to "Should You Tolerate Wrong Spelling in Children?"
August 20th, 2008 at 12:22 pm
No, I would not tolerate it. No, I would not tolerate decreasing performances of children regarding spelling because of text messaging. The primary reason is when they get out of school, it will not be tolerated in the work place. The rest of the world will not change to accommodate those with poor spelling for any excuse.
If they want to do text messaging, it must be with the understanding that it is only for text messaging and not acceptable anywhere else.
Thanks,
Anah
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jessie reply on August 21, 2008:
Anah,
We have the same idea. Thanks for your comment.
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August 22nd, 2008 at 1:23 am
No, I won’t tolerate din. Pero pano kung mommy mismo mali ang spelling, haha! One time kasi, habang nag-rereview kami ng words starting with letter A, sinulat ko yung axe, sabi nya wrong spelling daw, dapat daw ax lang walang e, ako naman, ininsist ko, sabi ko kuha kami ng dictionary nya, ax nga nakalagay. Kaya pala kabisado nya. Pero sa isang dictionary naman, axe nakalagay, nalito tuloy kami, haha! Yun pala pwedeng ax or axe.
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jessie reply on August 22, 2008:
Amor,
Ako rin I will not tolerate wrong spelling in kids. Not in a hundred years. About the words “ax” and “axe”, accepted talaga silang dalawa. I think the distinction is, the former is an American English term while the other one falls under the British English class.
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September 4th, 2008 at 7:00 am
I am a New Zealander and an ex-teacher. U comment: ‘Spelling errors are like diseases. They can be prevented or controlled.’ I would amend this by stating it is English spelling that is the disease, and errors arising from it could be largely avoided if we took control of the spelling and made it logical, sensible, and easily followed.
I found that ‘immediate corrections of errors’ made little difference to the spelling ability of those pupils who did not have good visual memories. Because, to be a good speller of English, we need to memorize the dictionary! We can’t rely on logic and the sound of the word.
English spelling is the greatest and basic cause of the poor literacy levels in English-speaking societies. Let’s get it fixed!
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jessie reply on September 5, 2008:
Allan,
Point well-taken. Thanks for your comment.
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