Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think this is teacher specific. My kid's superstar kindergarten teacher marked every worksheet, sometimes writing the correct spelling underneath words, but always putting a P for proficient, a star or a smiley face for really good work or a NI (needs improvement) where my kid was struggling. This year my kid's teacher hasn't marked up a thing, and I've been missing it. Not because I'm not capable of my telling my kid how to spell something properly in his assignment, but because I think it means she's not paying attention to their worksheets.

Or, she’s looking for something else. MCPS uses selected 6+1 Writing Traits rubrics. A teacher might look for just organization and ideas on certain assignments. Only Fluency and Conventions on another.

Sure, but that doesn’t explain why some teachers send all written work back unmarked.

Anonymous wrote:My kids have been in many different public schools all over the U.S. and none of them has cared about spelling or grammar. It's only the content. Sad but we are raising a bunch of kids who won't understand why their resumes or college essays will be their downfall.

Wow! Not my experience at all.

I hate to be critical, but I think you all are getting a bad deal. This is not normal. In Kinder and first, teachers often don't correct spelling or grammar because children haven't been taught those things yet. But third graders? fourth? Fifth? That is a failure of your teacher, school, district. Complain.

My kids have been in schools all over the US. Surprisingly, their schools in the deep south were super picky about grammar and spelling. I guess it's more of a traditional education. Here the focus seems more on getting kids to write, creativity, and content.

I like the Blue Book of Grammar.

The only time my child had intelligent, thoughtful and detailed feedback was in 4th grade.

That person had just been hired by MCPS as a teacher, and burned out and left at the end of the year. She lasted ONE YEAR.

Tells you something...

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kids have been in many different public schools all over the U.S. and none of them has cared about spelling or grammar. It's only the content. Sad but we are raising a bunch of kids who won't understand why their resumes or college essays will be their downfall.

Hasn't that already happened somewhat?

My sister runs a business and whenever she needs to hire someone, you should see the resumes she gets! She started administering a quick math test, and a test for things like putting words in alphabetical order, and it's proven to be incredibly difficult for people to pass! These are all high school graduates, and it's a pretty basic test.

This is so sad.

Anonymous wrote:My kids have been in many different public schools all over the U.S. and none of them has cared about spelling or grammar. It's only the content. Sad but we are raising a bunch of kids who won't understand why their resumes or college essays will be their downfall.

I'm an ESOL teacher and this is also the way the thinking is going in terms of ESOL instruction. WIDA (our governing body) is moving toward a complete focus on meaning and comprehensibility vs. meaning plus grammar, conventions, etc. So in a few years we won't even be able to explicitly teach grammar/syntax/conventions to non-native speakers. This should be interesting.

I've taught in almost every elementary grade level and there has been grammar instruction in every grade level. In the past few weeks alone in 3rd grade the classroom teachers have taught how to write using dialogue, root words and affixes as well as regular and irregular plural nouns. There were also a few other things in there as well. Curriculum 2.0 was supposed to delve deeper, but the literacy curriculum is pretty much a mile wide and an inch deep. They move so quickly and have to cover so many objectives in such little time and most of them don't connect well at all. I have no idea what they were smoking when they wrote it and whoever approved it should not work in education. Period.

Also, principals don't allow corrected work to go on the bulletin boards.

Anonymous wrote:My kids have been in many different public schools all over the U.S. and none of them has cared about spelling or grammar. It's only the content. Sad but we are raising a bunch of kids who won't understand why their resumes or college essays will be their downfall.

Hasn't that already happened somewhat?

My sister runs a business and whenever she needs to hire someone, you should see the resumes she gets! She started administering a quick math test, and a test for things like putting words in alphabetical order, and it's proven to be incredibly difficult for people to pass! These are all high school graduates, and it's a pretty basic test.

It is odd that people still have high expectation about anything in a country and county in decline.

My kids have been in many different public schools all over the U.S. and none of them has cared about spelling or grammar. It's only the content. Sad but we are raising a bunch of kids who won't understand why their resumes or college essays will be their downfall.

Anonymous wrote:I think this is teacher specific. My kid's superstar kindergarten teacher marked every worksheet, sometimes writing the correct spelling underneath words, but always putting a P for proficient, a star or a smiley face for really good work or a NI (needs improvement) where my kid was struggling. This year my kid's teacher hasn't marked up a thing, and I've been missing it. Not because I'm not capable of my telling my kid how to spell something properly in his assignment, but because I think it means she's not paying attention to their worksheets.

Or, she’s looking for something else. MCPS uses selected 6+1 Writing Traits rubrics. A teacher might look for just organization and ideas on certain assignments. Only Fluency and Conventions on another.

I think this is teacher specific. My kid's superstar kindergarten teacher marked every worksheet, sometimes writing the correct spelling underneath words, but always putting a P for proficient, a star or a smiley face for really good work or a NI (needs improvement) where my kid was struggling. This year my kid's teacher hasn't marked up a thing, and I've been missing it. Not because I'm not capable of my telling my kid how to spell something properly in his assignment, but because I think it means she's not paying attention to their worksheets.

No. My kid is in 5th and has NEVER had grammar corrected on his essays/writing assignments.

In 1st grade, they did focus on Capital first letter/Finger spacing/Period at the end. But that was the end of it.

We bought a grammar workbook last year and started going over her work at home.

Asked about it in 3rd grade, but teacher said they did not focus on grammar/spelling. Only on content. Though I don’t see many comments about content either.

Anonymous wrote:My son gets a grade, but there is little evidence that the teacher is interested in correcting misspells, grammar, syntax errors.
This is even in English.

I went to our ES's open house today and saw a bunch of essays on the wall, including my child's. The essay had a couple of obvious grammar mistakes in it, but there didn't seem to be any kind of feedback from the teacher on that. Ditto for a couple of other works I glanced at.

My child is in 4th grade and one would think it's time the school start paying attention to their mistakes. I sort of understand not stressing spelling/grammar in K, but in 4th grade.. that used to be called 'grammar school'??

My son gets a grade, but there is little evidence that the teacher is interested in correcting misspells, grammar, syntax errors.
This is even in English.