carole said:
It's worrying how many spelling mistakes can be found on one's children's school reports, too . . .
My friend, who is now a headmistress, was chastised by her tutor when she was a student for correcting children's spelling mistakes during one of her teaching practices. 'The children must be allowed to express themselves,' she was told.
Carole
Slightly connected anecdote: when I started primary (1968-ish), my mother was summoned in and given a severe talking to 'because she had taught me to read'. She replied that they were wrong: she'd read to me, certainly, and let me look at the pages as she'd read, and had answered any questions I had about the words, but so far as she was concerned I'd 'picked up the odd word or three' by myself. (That's me all over. I pick thing up and I just don't know how I do it.) "He will experience difficulties in later school life." warned the Head. "It always happens that way for the ones who can read before they arrive. The difference in the teaching methods confuses them. Mark my words."
A year and a bit goes past and my kid sister's in the class below me. Mother-Dear get another summons. "We're concerned about your son's reading. As we warned you would be the case, he seems to be experiencing difficulty. Thankfully, you didn't teach your daughter to read, but now she has overtaken your son in ability." Mother-Dear was perplexed. My sister, god love her, hated books with a passion and had to be dragged kicking and screaming to do her homework. I, on the other hand, had my nose constantly in a book. It didn't add up.
Questioned by my mother, I opined that it was the getting up in front of the class to read out loud I didn't like, so I tended to mumble. (Stupid idea anyway, guaging a kid's reading ability by how confident they are in front of an audience. Do they still do that?) Mother-Dear thought for a bit, pulled down some book off the shelf she was pretty sure I couldn't reach, and got me to read a page at random. So I did, and demonstrated comprehension of what I was reading too. Mother-Dear repeats the experiment with sis: she can't get a single word. Not even the conjunctions. The interrogation begins: sis confesses that she gets Mother-Dear to read with her so that she can
memorise all the words that mum takes her through. So Mother-Dear marches us into the Head's office and repeats the experiment, much to the Headmistress' chagrin. "Oops."
The following year Mother-Dear was summoned again, this time by my class teacher. She was concerned because she saw in my file that Mother-Dear had apparently been found guilty by the Headmistress of teaching me to read in the past, and was worried that she might be doing it again: it seems that I'd used direct speech in a composition I'd handed in and she hadn't taught us that yet. The same teacher had told Mother-Dear at the most recent Parents' Night that I was reading well in advance of my years. Yet she couldn't add two and two and realize the connection between the reading -and what I was reading- and what I was doing in my schoolwork....
Even at that age I could tell that she was talking rubbish. Oh well. 
(I am not saying that all primary school teachers are like that. Just enough to be noticeable.)
