I'm sorry, maybe too harsh but what the hell is going on in primary schools?

E.T.

We were told in lectures in Mary I not to correct phrases like "I seen" and "I done" as this was disparaging to the language of the area, and the language used by the child's parents.

Just ridiculous.

dambarude

E.T. wrote: »

We were told in lectures in Mary I not to correct phrases like "I seen" and "I done" as this was disparaging to the language of the area, and the language used by the child's parents.

I'm there now and we're told the same thing - but in fairness they do say we should model the grammatically correct version.

E.T.

That's fine orally, I'd say "Oh I saw that too" or "I did that too". You can model it when writing on the board, but if a child continually writes "I seen" or "I done", I feel that you do need to actually say that it's incorrect.

dambarude

E.T. wrote: »

That's fine orally, I'd say "Oh I saw that too" or "I did that too". You can model it when writing on the board, but if a child continually writes "I seen" or "I done", I feel that you do need to actually say that it's incorrect.

I agree! It's very hard to get out of habits like this, and it needs to be drawn to their attention.

I think teacher's need to be aware of the language they use to (student teachers in particular - I've heard many clangers).

I had to get out of the habit of saying 'I do be .....' myself. It does be said a lot around where I'm from (!).

Seanchai

gbee wrote: »

Personally I blame Irish. I've long since blamed Irish for our high level of illiteracy. I personally don't think Irish should be taught until a foundation language is formed ~ now that language could be Irish as you know, but it has to be native and Irish just isn't ~ it's syntax is the exact opposite, like the cat is on the table means the table is under the cat.

So we don't know whether it's table or tabla because they are in different places.

The ignorance, the scapegoat seeking, the undereducated loser mentality - but totally unsurprising coming from the poster who demanded that Irish be removed from all road and street signs in Ireland a while back. Cultural fascism at its finest.

spurious

Ah now, I don't be minding 'I do be' myself.

On the subject of patience, persistence, play etc..

'In my day' we used to have Bunty and similar magazines. On the back was a paper lady and a dress to cut out and hang on her (once she had been stuck to a cornflake box). If you were sloppy with the scissors, or cut off a tab or made a mistake, her dress fell off, so you learned to take your time and do things right. If this week's wardrobe was a write off, you made sure next week's wasn't.

My brothers and I made Airfix models - again, you had to be patient and develop fairly fine motor skills. All these skills that we learned in play stand to us. The experts today would call them cross-curricular and spend a day and a half telling us how fabulous they are to introduce into a school.

We had books like Leonard DeVries' Book of Experiments (.pdf - I highly recommend it) and long winter evenings.

I remember once for some reason deciding at about the age of six to make a cube out of cardboard, so I meticulously measured my four squares and had each one of them precisely right before I went to put them together. Of course four was not enough and I learned my lesson. I could have read a hundred times about a cube being six-sided and it may not have ever truly sunk in, but in that afternoon, I learned a great deal - about squares, cubes, area, volume, accuracy, checking and double checking.

I don't know where we went wrong. I am so glad sometimes to be towards this end of my career rather than starting again.

gubbie

When I started the PGDE, I went down to my local primary school to get a feel of what my students should know. I got a 6th class book and went through it. Then when I compared it to the Text & Tests book I realised that a good majority of it was being repeated in 1st year Maths. I was told by other teachers to assume they couldn't remember any of it. It's a waste of a year.

A part of me also wonders if the reason our results are so much poorer then our European counterparts is because less time is spent in school. My hours are 8:50 - 3:15. Some european countries have students 8-5 and Saturday school.

Caraville

I just think primary school teachers are asked to be all things to all men and the curriculum is completely overloaded. They don't have the time to be teaching the basics when the department are asking them to do so much more.

I'm a secondary school teacher and I just get so depressed at the state of spelling. I'm sure text speak doesn't help, but it's certainly not the main reason the spelling is so bad. I totally agree with the poster who mentioned a lack of patience on the students' part. They don't want to take the time to figure out how to spell something or to sound it out when reading a difficult word when everything else they do in life is instant. When I do projects with Transition Years they all think that copying and pasting from Google is sufficient. In Irish they Google Translate everything (which 99.99% of the time is completely incorrect). Everything has to be instant for them and learning something over time and with effort is alien to them. I agree that rote learning can be a bad thing, but I continue to be a major advocate for the fact that it definitely has a place in education.

And secondly- education begins in the home. Teachers have zero chance of making any improvements in literacy so long as things continue the way they are as regards the diminishing respect for education in Ireland. Parents need to spend more time with their children, reading with them, asking them spellings and buying them books. This idea of the parents being the primary educators just isn't acknowledged in some homes, and literacy is continuing to suffer as a result.

byhookorbycrook

At last!Back to a proper keyboard, have been following the debate with great interest.

Teaching children to read is not an easy skill.
Well-meaning parents start doing letter sounds at home and actually end up giving the wrong sounds.They often say "Muh" for mmm "ay" for ah and "tuh" for tttt, blend these three sounds and it certainly doesn't give you "mat".I think it is not up to parents to teach their child to read.Likewise,parents teaching children to write often means incorrect letter formation, pen grip etc. which will have to be corrected at school later.

That said, parents can and do play an essential role in reading readiness. Children learn the correct reading direction for sharing a book with their parent, they learn to use visual and contextual clues as well as prediction from being read to from ilustrated books. Their language skills are developed through verbal interaction. Phonological awareness is developed through the use of nursery rhymes,rhyming stories etc.

When I began teaching 25 + years ago (eeeek!)it was a given that almost every child starting would know the alphabet, days of the week, colours, have a good deal of independent living skills,listening skills,excellent gross and fine motor skills.

Now children start school who may never be spoken to except to be told to go watch t.v.,play your X-Box etc. They are often "babied" beyond belief- so can't /won't manage to use the toilet starting school,tie their coats,open their lunch etc.Concentration skillls are limited to short spells of noisy t.v/games etc. things like Snakes and Ladders that taught counting skills, turn taking and language like it's your turn, who's next,how many more to win etc are often overlooked and some children will throw hissy fits because a) they are always left win at home or b) they don't want to wait their turn etc.

The things we would have done as children like sorting socks,laying the table, helping with baking,buying our own things in a shop all laid the foundations for early maths skills.

Spellings are often not taught in school,giving a list of words to learn for the "traditional" Friday test is not teaching spelling. Our school has adopted the Brendan Culligan approach, whereby we concentrate on words each individual child needs to learn and there is strong emphasis on the high frequency writing words and using words in context.

Rote learning is a dirty concept it seems, children very rarely learn poetry off by heart as we would have done and some schools don't insist tables are learnt off- with the result that many children struggle to recall even basic number facts.

I have seen parents on many websites giving out about teachers using red pens on written work or imagine,teachers actually asking children to do corrections. There seems to be a culture of "get it done" rather than "get it right".When I was in school,any corrections had to be done ten times and then you re-wrote the whole thing into a "good copy".That wasn't right either but a balance between the two would encourage children to take more care in written work.

And then we come to currciulum overload,Irish, English, Maths, religion,history, geography,SPHE,music, visual arts,science have all been vastly expanded and many schools, like our own, have another European language as well.

It seems that under the new initiative that schools will now have to submit standardised test scores to the DES three times from primary school.This will mean nothing but teaching to the tests.It will not improve standards on anything else but paper. If the bould Ruairí were to be in any way serious about literacy and maths standards ,he could start by giving us money for basic resources like books and concrete material for maths.It sounds good to have the DES telling us they will raise standards, but it's all a P.R. excercise as far as I can see so far.

John Lonergan gave us a staff talk one year. He firmly believes that literacy is the key and that some of the 200,000 per year it costs to keep one prisoner in Mountjoy,invested at early primary would keep a lot of people out of prison.There are huge number of prisoners who are functionally illiterate. Sending in test results isn't going to address anything but will keep the DES busy and make it look like something is being done.

Caraville

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

Spellings are often not taught in school,giving a list of words to learn for the "traditional" Friday test is not teaching spelling. Our school has adopted the Brendan Culligan approach, whereby we concentrate on words each individual child needs to learn and there is strong emphasis on the high frequency writing words and using words in context.

I'm not familiar with this- does that mean that students never get tested on whether they can spell these words or not, and it's just through constantly using and writing them that the students learn them?

I still think there is a place for spelling tests personally. Maybe I'm old fashioned (even though I'm only in my 20s!) but I just think that students need to be tested on spellings. It can still be done in a context- via theme or whatever, rather than a random list of words- or even by putting the words into sentences for the test rather than simply calling out the word to them and expecting them to spell it. Either way, something has gone terribly wrong in recent times with spellings and it just seems a little too co-incidental that this ties in with the abandoning of the traditional spelling test. Although I do also think parental support and curriculum overload are the other two major players in the whole thing.

byhookorbycrook

The spellings are tested through weekly dictation and children keep a personal notebook of words they need to learn .I find that under the old system children will spell a word correctly for the test and then mis-spell it an hour later in their writing. The Culligan system certainly takes some setting up but it really does make a difference. Instead of constantly correcting the same words week in,week out, in written work,we are seeing a big change already-and we are only using it for 18 months or so.

Caraville

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

The spellings are tested through weekly dictation and children keep a personal notebook of words they need to learn .I find that under the old system children will spell a word correctly for the test and then mis-spell it an hour later in their writing. The Culligan system certainly takes some setting up but it really does make a difference. Instead of constantly correcting the same words week in,week out, in written work,we are seeing a big change already-and we are only using it for 18 months or so.

Sounds like a good system. To be honest, I'd be open to schools exploring any option of improving the spelling, because whatever's going on now isn't working. I honestly sometimes have no idea what a student is trying to say when I'm correcting their homework. And as for calling out notes to them- even in 5th & 6th year- sometimes it's just not worth it because you know they're going to write it wrong into their notes copies and I hate the idea of them having incorrect stuff in their copies.

What's bothering us in secondary schools the most though is that this year the department have been getting on to us to come up with a plan to implement a focus on numeracy and literacy in all secondary school subjects. I just feel that I have enough to be doing trying to cover the syllabus for the exam without having to worry if someone can spell sufficiently. I'm not an English or a Maths teacher- and although I will correct something that's added up wrong for an answer or spelled wrong in my subjects- it shouldn't be up to me to teach that student how to fix that problem.

Delphi91

Caraville wrote: »

...What's bothering us in secondary schools the most though is that this year the department have been getting on to us to come up with a plan to implement a focus on numeracy and literacy in all secondary school subjects...

This is "closing the stable door after the horse has bolted"!

Has anyone asked the question - why isn't the department doing the same in Primary Schools? Is it an admission that the primary system doesn't work and that if the department ask the second level system to remedy the problem, they won't have to do anything about it at primary level?

Both myself and my colleagues (in second level) have been asking this question for as long as I've been teaching (over 20 years). As a maths teacher, I've noticed a horrendous fall-off in the ability of students coming to my school. Basic mental arithmetic is non existent. Any problem that might involve more than one operation has kids diving for calculators straight away (worst thing ever to allow in a school prior to LC level!!). Tables are non-existent - a vital piece of knowledge in my opinion.

And don't get me started on spelling and reading ability. I've come across 1st years (12-13 years old) this year who have the reading age of a 6-7 year old child!! How in all fairness can this be justified???? The DES have some cheek asking the second level to implement Numeracy and Literacy programmes when children are allowed to leave the primary system with these sort of reading ages.

Simtech

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

The spellings are tested through weekly dictation and children keep a personal notebook of words they need to learn .I find that under the old system children will spell a word correctly for the test and then mis-spell it an hour later in their writing. The Culligan system certainly takes some setting up but it really does make a difference. Instead of constantly correcting the same words week in,week out, in written work,we are seeing a big change already-and we are only using it for 18 months or so.

I am but a parent. Could you explain The Culligan System or perhaps provide a link?

This is a very interesting thread, I thank you all for your insights.

vallo

I agree with a lot of what has been posted.
Can I add that I was quite surprised at the amount of time devoted to religious instruction for communion and confirmation.

byhookorbycrook

Simtech wrote: »

I am but a parent. Could you explain The Culligan System or perhaps provide a link?

This is a very interesting thread, I thank you all for your insights.

He is a lecturer in Marino and has written a number of books. We asked him to do some staff workshops and he also gave a talk to the parents.It's basically using words the children need to learn, there are dictation excercises which help you sort what each child knows/needs to know.it also involves looking at written work that the children do and picking out the common errors.He places a high value on playing with spelling,looking at visual patterns, using words in context.Have copied below from part of our policy.

General Points:


1. There is no single answer to the spelling problems of each child.
2. All spelling activity must be a written one.
3. Oral spelling is of very limited short-term value.
4. Encourage children to write from memory.
5. Spelling should not be a copying exercise.
6. Avoid words that the child cannot read.
7. Priority must be given to “everyday words”.
8. Very good / excellent spellers “catch” spelling unaided.
9. Train them to look for words within words from as early as possible, e.g. “I can see “hug” in “”Huggy”.
10. Help them to generalise with letter strings, e.g. clever and uncle.
11. Do not isolate letter strings from one another because they do not sound the same, e.g. one /bone /gone.
12. Do not focus on words in isolation, use context and when the child “knows” a word, let him/her use it.
13. Teaching spelling rules does not help the weak speller. There are too many exceptions to most rules and if the rule is complex, the child may not understand it in the first place.
14. Children’s own writing gives clues to their spelling problems.
15. Each child should have a “personal dictionary of errors” into which troublesome words may be written.
16. Have “buzz” sessions with the children (“share a troublesome word time”) What is your troublesome word? What part causes the problem? What do others think of this? Does it cause anybody else trouble? Has it got any “easy” bits? Are there any small words in it? Etc.
17. Writing out spellings a number of times is a totally inefficient procedure (even more so if it is seen as a punishment exercise)
18. Be wary of spelling homework. Be alert to the amount of words and the probable time taken to complete the task of learning at home.
19. Spending a long time at spelling in class will be counter productive. You must have short snappy sessions.
20.Getting a “list” of spellings correct is not a real indicator of progress. Improvement will only be seen in “free writing”.
21. Spelling must be seen as :
· Something enjoyable
· Something to be done in short, snappy informal sessions.
· Something to be praised for rather than reprimanded; and
· Something in which progress is being seen to be achieved.



Where should we get spellings from


· Frequently used words

· Words from reader

· Words from lists e.g. Corewords, Spelling Book, Dolch list

· Word Families e.g. -at words etc.

Methods of Teaching Spelling


1. Train children from early on to recognise words in words, see patterns of letters, make words with similar letter strings.

2. Use – Look-Say-Picture-Cover-Write-Check and Use method

3. Corewords and dictation method as outlined in Brendan Culligan’s book.

· Each child is given a copy of the corewords at the start of each month

· Each child will have a notebook alphabetically ordered which will be used as a dictionary of personal errors

· The teacher dictates sentences the number depending on the age and ability of the children. Allow time for the child to check and self correct.

· The same sentences can be given all week, so that after day one some children will have got all spellings correct, day two more will have got all correct and so on until by Friday most of the children will have mastered the sentences being used that week.

· The child or teacher highlights the words that have been misspelt on the coreword list.

· The child compares his word with the correct one to see any bad spots or good spots

· The child writes the word into his/her personal dictionary

· The word then becomes the child’s spelling homework

· If many of the children are inaccurate with a particular word then it becomes material for teaching spelling. The bad spots are looked at and strategies for remembering how to spell the word are worked out with the class. It may lead to a nemonic being made up or a short TROUBLESOME WORD session.

· The next time the child meets this word and gets it right it is highlighted out of his personal dictionary

How do we correct spellings?

Point out what part of the word is correct

Point out the part that is incorrect

Explain what is in correct about it

Fuinseog

peanuthead wrote: »

I'm a secondary school teacher of English and languages.

Sorry, I don't mean to come across as overly harsh here, but what the hell is going on in primary schools today that means students can't spell??

I have bitten my tongue on this one for a long, long time because I wasn't sure who was at fault exactly. Having students come in to me not able to spell the most basic of words, even the ones who would be considered the more intelligent students, has both annoyed and frustrated me for a long time.

I often thought to myself, maybe it's harder than just repetition, spellings tests, games etc and that if the majority of students are having problems with it, it's not that primary schools are not approaching it, just maybe doing so in the wrong way.

But this year has been my first year to teach my language subject to first years and I am utterly appalled at my findings. After two months of doing this language, my students can spell better in a foreign language than they can in English!!

Can any primary school teacher (or anyone with a bit of insight into this) please explain to me what the hell is going on in primary schools that students don't know how to write things like "should of" and "we carrie are books in a schoolbag" correctly?

We are being asked to jump through hoops in secondary with relation to literacy and numeracy, but to be honest, after 6 years of doing it wrong, although I would never say it is too late to learn how to spell, it's a lot harder than if they had learned the right way in the first place.

As a secondary school English teacher I am losing my patience with students arriving into first year, having studied Junior certificate poetry, read junior cycle novels and completed huge chunks of junior cycle textbooks.

I also know from interviewing a 6th class teacher for a Curriculum research paper I wrote 2 years ago, that there is a heavy emphasis in 6th class on 1st year of secondary school, giving students extra homework, getting them to read more books.

With the greatest respect (and directed more at the system/powers that be/syllabus authors rather than the individual teachers) - can you not just stick to your own syllabus, focus on the basics/literacy and leave the secondary syllabus for the secondary teachers???

A big rant I know and hopefully not too OTT

I have experience of the primary system and when you have a class of up to 35 its hard to give everyone the attention they need. Bear in mind that the European class size average is 20.
They learn little or no grammar whether it be Irish or English, which I regard as unfortunate.
There is more emphasis placed on fun and games rather than teaching the kids how to write.
a lot depends on the parents. in our primary school the PA came together and organised the library, which was well stocked and staffed by the parents themselves. in other cases however parents do not encourage their kids to read.
in the world of text speak when do kids need to write anything?

Fuinseog

I think another issue is the poor standards teachers themselves set. they give a spelling test and if the word is nearly written correctly they give a half mark. Its either right or wrong but the current thinking is the child should always be a winner.

byhookorbycrook

Fuinseog wrote: »

I think another issue is the poor standards teachers themselves set. they give a spelling test and if the word is nearly written correctly they give a half mark. Its either right or wrong but the current thinking is the child should always be a winner.

Culligan would hold you tick the correct parts, no marks awarded for it,so it's not a competition. The child who spells "night" as "nite" is a better speller than the one who spells it "qers" and the correct parts should be recognised,but that's it. Child still needs to learn the word correctly.

befriend1

I have three third level qualifications and still have a serious issue with my spelling, grammar and syntax. I went to a DEIS primary and secondary school and can honestly not recall ever learning about grammar. It is a joke!!

headmaster

The only people not being blamed at all, with regard to all of the problems, are, PARENTS. Then again, does that surprise anyone? Yeah, thought so.

golden virginia

There is one part here thats missing though... i find students can often not be communicative vebally. I get no communicative engagement from them beyond one or two words and gestures vocal expressive sounds. its like their capacity to form a sentence even verbally does not exist..... so its bigger problem than just literacy ... or have the irish just simply lost the gift of the gob?

happywithlife

haven't read all the replies but I was shocked last year when I substituted for a woman and part of her timetable was peer teaching with the english teacher - we had one class four days a week with a first year group and for the four weeks I was there all we did was basic sentence construction - put a capital letter at the beginning & places names etc also get capitals... the difference between their, they're and there. And so on.
I couldn't believe it !
I do know though from a primary school teacher neighbour, that one of her bug bears is the way their curriculum has broadened out so much in recent years and they are expected to cover so much, that no time is left for the basics.
Another secondary school I worked in last year, had a discussion within the English dept with regards to timetabling one class a week for all incoming first years that was to solely address literacy & spelling - not to cover curriculum content per say.
(please don't highlight how many mistakes I've probably made just typing this )

khan86

I'm a secondary school teacher of Religious Education and would agree with some of the posts on here about too much time being spent on Religion in primary schools. It is astonishing the amount of time spent on it, signing hymns and drawing doves. I know a couple of primary teachers who say a huge chunk of their term after Christmas is taken up with preparing for communion and confirmation in second and sixth class. The way it is taught is ridiculous for a start, it's indoctrination not education and should be left to the Church, Mosque, Synagogue or wherever you worship. At the very least it should be left for after school just like piano lessons or dance-classes. I would rather the time be spent on teaching kids how to read and spell properly as I'm sure many would agree

hudie mcmenamin

My kid has been in primary school for 3 years. They have only done numbers up to 10 ... Addition only. He seems to spend most of his maths 'homework' colouring in snakes. He hasn't done any subtraction or tables( the tables only go to 10x10 these days). Enough is enough. I'm just going to have to teach him myself. The NCCA has a LOT to answer for. By the way if anyone s interested, look up khan academy for tons of educational resources - everything from basic addition to credit derivatives in 10 minute videos!

Solair

They seem to have abandoned the mechanics of language teaching when it comes to English.

It's all very well to assume kids will pick things up, but as someone who has Cambridge English teaching qualifications for ESOL, I know these things have to be taught!

English orthography is not very phonetic and its highly irregular compared to many other languages. The grammar system is not always self explanatory either.

Blaming phones, texting or media consumption is a joke to be perfectly honest. Something is going wrong with the teaching.

Also, if kids aren't reading, did anyone ever consider a book club, doing book reports etc? Compare a book and a movie? Get your kids enthused about reading! As a teacher, that's your job!!

Clearly teachers are either incapable of teaching English or, do not understand what they're doing anymore.

This is a crisis situation and it need to be fixed fast! Failure to do so will have a very negative impact on hundreds of thousands of people's lives!

Incidentally, this was typed on a smart phone, proving that blaming texting is nonsense!

Also, I don't remember having any formal or even informal grammar classes in primary school either! I had to relearn the mechanics of writing in my teens and twenties. I learnt all of the finer points by teaching myself!

thewinner12345

there are many problems in primary school, the biggest one in my opinion is that the curriculum is overloaded. Teachers in primary are expected to make room for more, more, more all the time. The basics of reading, writing and maths are simply not given enough time. There is not enough time to teach these subjects properly. While it may be wonderful to say swimming or French for example should be taught in school, each time something new is added the time is reduced for something else. The Minister has said he will increase the amount of time for these subjects and when I heard this first I thought, wonderful. I thought something else would be taken out to make room but this is not the case --- it seems it will have to be done through integration with other subjects which is a mistake and only paying lipservice to what he intended originally.
Of course there are other problems

---

disinterested parents and students, large class sizes, sen children who take up lots of teacher time as they have no SNA, disruptive students(the bane of every teacher) etc. etc. etc.
but I feel if more time had been allocated to the main subjects it would have been a huge step in the right direction. The perhaps spelling and all of the basics would improve.

rainbowtrout

Do children have these kind of books anymore? These were our bibles when I was in primary school in the late 80s. We learned all sorts of grammar, sentence structure etc from them. Plenty of exercises in them to teach and practice different elements of grammar. I have a feeling with the way things are going that if I ever have children I'll be investing in a copy of both so that they can write and speak English properly.

I'm amazed but not surprised to see they are still available

dring

Solair

The unfortunate result :

Brendan97

When i was in primary school (not so long ago) we did irish every day, maths every day and english once a week

Shane L

Spelling improves with reading. I wouldn't be the best in the spelling department but thanks to all the reading I did when I was younger when something is misspelt it just looks "weird". Strangely enough I read much more when I was younger compared to now :pac: I'm in my second year of college and only last year I found about the i before e except after c rule!

whydoibother?

Shane L wrote: »

Spelling improves with reading. I wouldn't be the best in the spelling department but thanks to all the reading I did when I was younger when something is misspelt it just looks "weird". Strangely enough I read much more when I was younger compared to now :pac: I'm in my second year of college and only last year I found about the i before e except after c rule!

Don't worry about that one. According to QI, the rule fails more times than it's reliable.

CIARAN_BOYLE

khan86 wrote: »

I'm a secondary school teacher of Religious Education and would agree with some of the posts on here about too much time being spent on Religion in primary schools. It is astonishing the amount of time spent on it, signing hymns and drawing doves. I know a couple of primary teachers who say a huge chunk of their term after Christmas is taken up with preparing for communion and confirmation in second and sixth class. The way it is taught is ridiculous for a start, it's indoctrination not education and should be left to the Church, Mosque, Synagogue or wherever you worship. At the very least it should be left for after school just like piano lessons or dance-classes. I would rather the time be spent on teaching kids how to read and spell properly as I'm sure many would agree

I have to agree with you here. I'd say an entire year of primary school is spent focusing on Communion and Confirmation. I'm not a fan of this. Its not an anti religious thing since I'm religious my my self.

90% of kids see communion and confirmation as a way to get money rather than any relioug experience. It should be left for Religious parents and the Church to run outside school hours.

Fuinseog

Shane L wrote: »

Spelling improves with reading. I wouldn't be the best in the spelling department but thanks to all the reading I did when I was younger when something is misspelt it just looks "weird". Strangely enough I read much more when I was younger compared to now :pac: I'm in my second year of college and only last year I found about the i before e except after c rule!

even 16 year olds do not read newspapers or anything of substance. neither the department nor parents encourage reading of any kind. some kids come to secondary school and they can barely read or write which makes one wonder how they spent primary school.

RealJohn

CIARAN_BOYLE wrote: »

I have to agree with you here. I'd say an entire year of primary school is spent focusing on Communion and Confirmation. I'm not a fan of this. Its not an anti religious thing since I'm religious my my self.

90% of kids see communion and confirmation as a way to get money rather than any relioug experience. It should be left for Religious parents and the Church to run outside school hours.

In fairness, it's not as though there used to be less time spent on religion. Spending time on religion isn't the reason the primary schools are doing a bad job, it's that they're not spending as much time as they used to on the "three Rs".

shayno90

I had a principal in national school from the mid to late nineties who was incapable of teaching and spent most of her time speaking about her son who was abroad. Meanwhile, most of the basics we had learned in the main subjects in previous years had diminished due to her incompetence plus the inability by the board to remove to her from her post until she reached retirement age.

Some comments on the main subjects are:

Most students had to learn for themselves at home by attempting the work that was barely taught during the day. There was an answer book accompanying the maths text book which was used by her to give us the answers to all the math problems but not once were we shown how to solve any of the problems. Maths really was an issue for many maths teachers that we had regarding issues with an inability to teach it and not understanding the material either.

As for English, we mostly read at home as there was a mobile library to came every 1/2 weeks and we almost always brought a book home to read. There was no such thing as abbreviating most words to save time when writing so this was not an issue nor was the pronunciation or. We relearned most of the English grammar in secondary school again.

Then, a few days before the arrival of 'an cigire', she would attempt to teach us to say a few basic Irish sentences to respond to any of the inspectors questions in order to cover her own incompetence. Irish was not taught by her, you just attempted to do some of the exercises in the textbook at home. After learning other foreign languages, I realized how little was taught about verbs, grammar, vocabulary, tenses etc., and that an emphasis on oral speaking was non existent.

By the time secondary school arrived, most students who had remained and not gone to nearby schools had to catch up with other better taught students. There was a big jump from primary school to secondary which should not have been the case if there was a consistent learning pattern throughout primary school. For me, it was like a 'DIY' primary school!

RonMexico

It is not just a problem at primary or secondary level. It is a HUGE problem at third level, particularly with teacher training courses. Imagine 1st year college students who want to teach admitting that they "never read". Yeah, I am serious.

TonyStark

peanuthead wrote: »

I'm a secondary school teacher of English and languages.

Sorry, I don't mean to come across as overly harsh here, but what the hell is going on in primary schools today that means students can't spell??

I have bitten my tongue on this one for a long, long time because I wasn't sure who was at fault exactly. Having students come in to me not able to spell the most basic of words, even the ones who would be considered the more intelligent students, has both annoyed and frustrated me for a long time.

I often thought to myself, maybe it's harder than just repetition, spellings tests, games etc and that if the majority of students are having problems with it, it's not that primary schools are not approaching it, just maybe doing so in the wrong way.

But this year has been my first year to teach my language subject to first years and I am utterly appalled at my findings. After two months of doing this language, my students can spell better in a foreign language than they can in English!!

Can any primary school teacher (or anyone with a bit of insight into this) please explain to me what the hell is going on in primary schools that students don't know how to write things like "should of" and "we carrie are books in a schoolbag" correctly?

We are being asked to jump through hoops in secondary with relation to literacy and numeracy, but to be honest, after 6 years of doing it wrong, although I would never say it is too late to learn how to spell, it's a lot harder than if they had learned the right way in the first place.

As a secondary school English teacher I am losing my patience with students arriving into first year, having studied Junior certificate poetry, read junior cycle novels and completed huge chunks of junior cycle textbooks.

I also know from interviewing a 6th class teacher for a Curriculum research paper I wrote 2 years ago, that there is a heavy emphasis in 6th class on 1st year of secondary school, giving students extra homework, getting them to read more books.

With the greatest respect (and directed more at the system/powers that be/syllabus authors rather than the individual teachers) - can you not just stick to your own syllabus, focus on the basics/literacy and leave the secondary syllabus for the secondary teachers???

A big rant I know and hopefully not too OTT

I like your one sentence paragraphs and the usage of the comma in each sentence.

highly1111

TonyStark wrote: »

I like your one sentence paragraphs and the usage of the comma in each sentence.

I seriously wonder what buzz you get out of posting useless comments such as the one above. Someone has a serious superiority complex .

Stick to the topic and if you've nothing to contribute, that's fair enough. Enough of the petty swiping on this site.

Toto Wolfcastle

TonyStark wrote: »

I like your one sentence paragraphs and the usage of the comma in each sentence.

Please do not comment on the grammar of other posters. It is against the charter. If you have nothing helpful to add, please don't post.

highly1111 wrote: »

I seriously wonder what buzz you get out of posting useless comments such as the one above. Someone has a serious superiority complex .

Stick to the topic and if you've nothing to contribute, that's fair enough. Enough of the petty swiping on this site.

If you have a problem with a post please report it. Backseat modding is against the charter.

Back on topic please.

Fuinseog

RonMexico wrote: »

It is not just a problem at primary or secondary level. It is a HUGE problem at third level, particularly with teacher training courses. Imagine 1st year college students who want to teach admitting that they "never read". Yeah, I am serious.

I can think of plenty of final college year students who never read a book or language teachers who could barely speak the language they were supposed to be teaching.
A lot of schools place a greater emphasis on extra curricular activities than on academic. Someone who can coach rugby or GAA gets the job, so long as they can read and write.

golden virginia

Fuinseog wrote: »

I can think of plenty of final college year students who never read a book or language teachers who could barely speak the language they were supposed to be teaching.
A lot of schools place a greater emphasis on extra curricular activities than on academic. Someone who can coach rugby or GAA gets the job, so long as they can read and write.

I agree, and I wish to add that there has not until recent years been a requriement, that teachers can even read and write. i have taught alongside an awful lot of unqualified teachers and under unqualified principals.

If youre in - you in, and if your out your out. We need a government that bothers to value qualification in the profession, as a way of real improvement.

rainbowtrout

Fuinseog wrote: »

I can think of plenty of final college year students who never read a book or language teachers who could barely speak the language they were supposed to be teaching.
A lot of schools place a greater emphasis on extra curricular activities than on academic. Someone who can coach rugby or GAA gets the job, so long as they can read and write.

I've seen this too and I can't understand the mentality. I remember a conversation with an English teacher where I work from a couple of years back; she said that there were a number of students in her Higher Level English class who wanted to do English in college, and one or two of them had suggested that they would go on to become English teachers. Instead of being delighted, she was horrified. These students seemed to have no interest in the subject, disliked reading and didn't read the novel that was on the course. They had no interest in reading in general. She couldn't work out what would possess them to want to study English at degree level, and then to teach it when they had no interest in the subject.

evolving_doors

rainbowtrout wrote: »

I've seen this too and I can't understand the mentality. I remember a conversation with an English teacher where I work from a couple of years back; she said that there were a number of students in her Higher Level English class who wanted to do English in college, and one or two of them had suggested that they would go on to become English teachers. Instead of being delighted, she was horrified. These students seemed to have no interest in the subject, disliked reading and didn't read the novel that was on the course. They had no interest in reading in general. She couldn't work out what would possess them to want to study English at degree level, and then to teach it when they had no interest in the subject.

Probably when Dead Poets Society was out...

rainbowtrout

Armelodie wrote: »

Probably when Dead Poets Society was out...

No it's a bit more recent than that. Most of them weren't born when Dead Poets Society was out. I doubt most of them have ever seen it.

spurious

When you have a system that has allowed a culture of teaching to the exam to spread and infect schools, why would you need to read the book? Just read the notes, or better still, watch the film.

Tigerandahalf

Txtspeak is a big problem...
u c wen u reed n rite lik dis most of da time, da spelins dont stay in ur head!!

Lord TSC

Tigerandahalf wrote: »

Txtspeak is a big problem...
u c wen u reed n rite lik dis most of da time, da spelins dont stay in ur head!!

Personally, I've never bought into that. I used text talk all the time growing up but it still didn't stop me from learning to spell. I know I can't use myself as the example, but there's too much blame placed on "those kids and their fancy text talking."

My primary school was great though; every Friday, from junior infants up to sixth class, we had a ten minute spelling test, going back over new words we learned that week. It never took much time, but it drove the proper spellings into our heads.

Tigerandahalf

Tigerandahalf wrote: »

Txtspeak is a big problem...
u c wen u reed n rite lik dis most of da time, da spelins dont stay in ur head!!

Couple of other factors that have an effect:
Mothers no longer in the home. Parents now too knackered coming home from hr commute. No time for a proper family dinner and chat around the table.
Having the time to read and check children's homework.
Poor discipline, we've gone from too strict to too lenient.
Too much money. Poorer countries and families within them place a greater emphasis on education.
A lot could be done but the recession could be one of the better remedies.