Kiwi school kids are not consistently taught letter formation or spelling the way they once were. But these simple skills are part of the foundations of higher learning.
English spelling is not an illogical burden there to make life difficult for our children.
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The latest round of NAPLAN results show Australia’s school systems are not good at reducing the influence of a student’s background on their academic achievement.
Hard for primary school children – what about you?
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Spelling bees don’t do much for the self esteem of the rest of the population that struggles with spelling. However, we CAN all be good spellers and if we are not, it is because we haven’t been taught how words work.
Pressuring kids to memorise obscure, low frequency words does not promote good learning.
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Channel Ten’s newly announced show, The Great Australian Spelling Bee, may seem like a great platform for promoting literacy skills. But it is promoting the memorisation of pointless, low-frequency words rather than anything helpful.
Teachers don’t have to have perfect spelling to teach kids how to spell.
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According to recent media reports, a new study shows an alarming number of aspiring teachers have lower literacy levels than the school students they will be teaching. This coincides with a series of articles…
Higher education got the most attention it’s had in decades, thanks to the proposed shake up by this man.
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While 2013 was all about schools and their funding (remember Gonski, anyone?), 2014 was the year of higher education reform. Or, at least, proposed higher education “reform”. With cuts to higher education…
Looking for a New Year’s resolution? Forget losing weight, exercising more and quitting the bad stuff. How about we all resolve to spell “definitely” correctly … and “separate” … and “lose” … and “you’re…
Children who compete in spelling bees often dazzle with their ability to spell complex words. In this year’s televised Scripps National Spelling Bee, two American teenagers were so good they were crowned…
Language isn’t meant to be uniform and globalised.
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Here’s the truth, and if you’re British or Australian, you may not like it: when it comes to the suffix ize, as opposed to ise, the American standard is correct. I have no idea what cultural forces made…
Spelling tests aren’t teaching kids to spell.
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A couple of years ago, early one morning, I received an SMS advising “resadents to stay indoors because of a nearby insadent”. I was shocked by the spelling, as much as the message. Surely, I thought…