Spelling Mistakes - Food for Thought

Yesterday I came across a blog post that struck a chord with me. It was an article about spelling mistakes in children's draft writing books. See below for the link to the original post. 


The blog post starts off like this... 

'Last week, my son brought home a stack of papers from his first-grade class. Some of them had obvious spelling errors, but no one had marked them wrong. Later that same day, I was helping my 10-year-old daughter with a research paper. I noticed a few misspellings on her draft, but when I pointed them out, she said, “My teacher told us not to worry about spelling when we’re drafting.”

What’s the deal? Why don’t teachers seem to care about spelling anymore?'

In our classroom, I tell the children the exact same thing as this teacher has told her class. At the beginning of the year I had three children who were in tears during writing time. This is the first time I have had children in my class that were this upset and reluctant to write. Not all children were upset on the same day, but their stories are the same. I simply asked them what they were worried about. Two children were worried about their spelling not being correct; the other child was worried about her handwriting being messy. 

I explained that I wasn't worried about their handwriting or spelling. All I asked was that they got their ideas down onto paper and tried their best. We also talked about how we're all learners and that it's okay to make mistakes. That's how we learn. These weren't children who didn't know what they wanted to write. They were creative students, who were able to share their ideas orally. They were just reluctant to record them on paper. As the term went on this particular group of children became more confident writers who actively participated during both group writing and independent writing time. I put a large emphasis on sharing writing once it's finished and celebrating success. Sometimes individual children read their story in front of the class and children provide positive feedback or suggestions for further improvement. Other times it is published on our class blog or the school kids corner, which is accessed through the school wiki. 

I'm not saying that handwriting and spelling isn't important, but during draft writing time I don't think it's essential. There's a time and a place e.g. during proof reading and re-crafting. It should never be a barrier to getting a draft story written down. From the start of Term 2 I will have five iPads in my classroom. I'm looking forward to being able to use these to further engage my reluctant writers. 

http://www.cultofpedagogy.com/spelling-mistakes/