Howw awfull.

Iz badd!!!

My child, though funny and adorable, is not a LOL cat. She should not write like one.

I look forward to hearing about Kid Math and Kid Science.

Let's hope they don't teach creationism.

That really sounds like a terrible idea, jrossi4r. I can't believe they do that!

Maybe it's the teacher's idea. Talk to the teacher.

It's not awful, really.

Like you said, jrossi. It's a good thing at this age group. They're learning to read before they write (or spell). Sounding out the words is what they do when they read, as you know. The teachers want them to use the same idea when they write -- to reinforce reading and phonetics. It won't be this way forever. In first grade they will start to correct. You could start correcting now, especially sight words, and words that end in e, and things like that. There is no harm. I wouldn't correct big words like appreciate, for example. It's a good thing if they can sound these "big" words out on their own, and spell them phonetically, without going into confusing spelling rules and exceptions.

My school-aged child is very literal too. He still writes what he hears at times, especially the big words, but mostly he spells correctly. He hasn't had less than 100 percent on all of his spelling tests.

Next year she'll spell the word wrong, not rong. Not to worry.

-- to reinforce reading and phonetics

that should be phonics, not phonetics.

jrossi, I think you'll find that it's "dummer." ;-)

I can see why this would be helpful to some kids, and it's something that comes up a lot in learning foreign languages (Try not to correct yourself all the time, just speak). But I can also see why it could get problematic for kids who tend to look up to authority figures. I would have had the same "But my teacher said it's this way!" stubborn reaction, I suspect.

It's just one thing that they try early on, and I don't think it's necessarily anything to worry about. Both my kids went to a 'lab shcool' at the local uni, and the staff there tried out all sorts of different learning strategies. Kids normally glom onto the ones that work and disregard the rest.

eye luv thee idear

It's a district-wide (maybe even state or national) thing, so there's no room for talking to the teacher or that they'll be other approaches for her to glom onto. That's "the way." And yeah, occhi, it's that stubborn reaction that's the problem. It may be very effective for some children, but it's not a great thing for mine. I hope she's like your son, Lori, and can shake it eventually, but it seems like so much more work to have to undo the bad habits she's getting into.

FWIW, my mom works at the school (she's the asst. in the special ed room) and she and the head teacher absolutely HATE Kid Writing. Apparently, they wait too long to start correcting them and some of the teachers are a bit inconsistent, so a lot of kids leave elementary school still unable to spell simple words.

Let's hope they don't teach creationism.
It was a source of debate in the last schoolboard election, so it's not outside the realm of possibility. I'm primed for a fight if that day comes.

I don't know how to read, but I've got a lot of toys...

When I was teaching, this was known as "Whole Language Learning." Funny how the concepts stay the same but the language changes to make it seem like a fresh new way of doing things.

Phonics works, but who's gonna sell textbooks without new ideas? These educational trends change (back and forth on a fifteen-year cycle) only to give administrative jobs to academics, at the expense of childrens' ability to learn to read and write.

I'm sure the kids'll have an immeasurable and false sense of self-esteem. Or they'll have terrible trouble treating teachers, who lied to them about spelling when they were starting out, as authorities at all. Or they'll be fine despite a dumb approach to early language learning.

It's a shame. Kids are versatile and resilient, though, and will eventually learn no matter what stupid and horrible cults of idea the adults they depend on join.

Gah! So they've ditched spelling? I don't have any conscious memory of learning how to read (I knew how by the time I started kindergarten), but I remember we had separate reading, spelling and grammar books all the way through grades 1-6.

Ew. Ew ew ewewew. (not a flock of female sheep)
Do they get penalized if they produce the correct spellings?

I remember having trouble making squares in kindergarten and feeling frustrated...but somehow I learned how to do them properly.

If it's any consolation, jrossi, this is a natural progression. We all misspelled words as young children. All of us that wrote stories before we entered school misspelled words. We wrote what we heard. We misspelled words in Kindergarten and probably continued to misspell words in our elementary years post Kinder. We all know how to spell today. We know the spelling rules. Maybe our teachers corrected us as young as Kinder, but probably not.

What she is doing is good. She is hearing the sounds. The teacher isn't supposed to correct them at this level. I would be concerned if she were spelling cat ct, without the vowel. I would correct a child then for sure, and the teacher would too, because the child missed a vital sound. But lef or leef, for leaf is good. Yes, I realize I'm not a teacher, but this is something that I'm familiar with because I have a first grader and my sister is an elementary school teacher and I ask her about these things.

I'm sure there is research on this topic if you want to investigate further. Misspelling words in Kindergarten. I'm sure there is a slew of information and the reasoning behind it. The rossi kid is bright. She would probably understand the reasoning.

We misspelled words in Kindergarten and probably continued to misspell words in our elementary years post Kinder.

Actually, I didn't. I obviously had a much smaller vocabulary but based on the ridiculous amounts of kid homework my mom saved I can safely say that I misspell words much more often now that I have a keyboard to make typos on.

i never sounded them out as a kid. i knew what the words looked like. In Kindergarten, i remember misreading on as no to a teacher who made me read a book to her.

But then i also learned everything backwards apparently and had to try and figure out backwards how they taught it from the answer.
My memory now comparatively sucks.

Is this perhaps an attempt to make kids who can't spell due to disability, like dyslexia, feel better about themselves?

We do all misspell words (as children and adults), but in school, someone is supposed to correct our mistakes and teach us the right answer (or at least how to find the right answer). Sounding out is only the first step in learning to spell. Waiting until next year to correct students and move them to the next step in spelling strikes me as misguided at best. I'd spend a lot of time making sure my child was learning correct spelling, if I knew she was being encouraged to spell words how she wanted to with no regard for whether she was correct or not.

My mother still curses my kindergarten teacher for convincing her that no-one should correct my penmanship because "Lizzy's little brain just works faster than her little hand". I never ever never got the hang of forming letters correctly because no-one made me try. My handwriting is useless, embarrassing and an actual handicap in my profession.

I really think this is a bad idea. Surely there are ways to make children feel good about themselves without teaching them wrong things.

I'm not a parent, so FWIW.

My father was a teacher, my spouse is a teacher who bemoans the whole self esteem bubble thing and the papers his high school kids turn in are definately at a low level - my teachers would not have allowed them.

I also went to school reading and writing, and got slightly fast-tracked.

The thing is, though, my Mom wouldn't let me read or watch Dr. Seuss because the words weren't spelled right/were made up. I had a big "different" feel that maybe I would have had anyway, and maybe I wouldn't.

I'm on the one hand appalled, and on the other, feel like for social adjustment she might be better off going with the flow. I mean, whateryagonna do? You've said you can't beat the system. Although, maybe the teacher has had smrt kidz with this frustration before and could offer some advice? Or the principal? I guess you'd like to explain it to little rossi so that she doesn't get frustrated. This is the way leaf is spelled, but you and your classmates will learn that before you know it!

(I am so not a parent. Gah.)

I think I'm the only person that thinks this teacher's, and school's, method is appropriate.

Not correcting at this level is also intentional and important in the aspect of writing. In Kindergarten children are actively writing sentences, everyday. My kid in Kinder would bring home a ditto with the letter D with pictures of D words like duck, dog, door. Or a word family (sat, cat, mat) on the front. On the back of the ditto, or on a separate sheet of paper, they were required to use these words in a sentence of their own imagination. There were some misspelled words in there, especially larger words and words they haven't learned to spell correctly. What is the point in correcting a word such as questshun for question at this age. Are you going to explain the rules of -ion at this time? To a 4 or 5 year old? Be proud that the kid wrote what she heard. This is what is supposed to happen. These are the building blocks of reading.

If the teacher corrects every other misspelled word in a sentence the child will probably be discouraged to write. Again, it's frustrating, and not appropriate at this age. Maybe the self-esteem thing has something to do with it at this age. They don't want to discourage confident writers. If your public school is like mine, jrossi. There is much more diligent correcting in first grade.

I think there's a difference between not correcting spelling -- which I agree is appropriate for this age group, in most settings -- and actively saying "This is right." It sounds like jrossi's frustrated with the latter.

If a teacher said, "Let's practice our storytelling!" and then didn't correct spelling, I think that's totally fine. It's a way to focus on the process of creative writing without getting hung up on spelling and grammar.

But if a teacher said, "Let's practice our spelling!" and then didn't correct spelling, that's.... not so cool.

I'm sure the reality is somewhere between the two, but there are certainly ways of being forgiving without being misleading, and it doesn't sound, from jrossi's daughter's reaction, like the teacher's doing a particularly good job with that balance.

i don't think there is anything wrong with it per se, and first grade is more for correcting these things, but in the case of little rossi it seems to not be working. Maybe she just wants definite rights and wrongs and boundaries, so let her know what she needs to know and maybe explain it to the teacher.

Yes, ethylene and occhi. I went off on a tangent about correcting spelling mistakes in general.

In jrossi's case I would correct the papers that little rossi brings home. Correct, read, discuss.

Or maybe not, my kid wrote what he heard in Kinder and it's amazing to see that he spells correctly, even words that are confusing like words that end in -e and words with silent consonants (wr-) and so on. First grade is when they introduce all of this stuff anyway and it clicks quickly. Very quickly. The more she sees the word leaf in print she will remember this is how it is really spelled.

You said it better than me, occhiblu. If you're writing a story they're not so concerned with spelling. A spelling test or exercise? They are most definitely concerned with spelling. I don't think they give spelling tests until first grade anyway. At least, not around here.

If a teacher said, "Let's practice our storytelling!" and then didn't correct spelling, I think that's totally fine. It's a way to focus on the process of creative writing without getting hung up on spelling and grammar.

That's exactly what they're doing, occhiblu. They just want them to experiment with sounds and work on how to put their thoughts together. And you're right, Lori...it's kindergarten. Frankly, it's a wonder that they can write at all.

I must admit that there's a bit of a power struggle going on, too. Up until now, I've been her teacher. If she wrote "lef," we'd talk about how it's a long E sound there and try to figure out what letters could go where to make it say "leaf." I guess I'm having a hard time adjusting to someone else with different methods taking over. (Especially when "but the teacher said...." gets thrown in my face as refutation.)

Having worked with kindergarten-aged kids in a summer school program a few years ago, I understand your frustration jrossi, but tend to agree more with Lori. These were kids who would be going into first grade, and when we did writing exercises it was like pulling teeth just to get some of them to write anything at all. At that age, there is such a disconnect between writing and speaking; they could tell me what they wanted to say but were reluctant to write those exact same words on the paper. Half the time it was out of frustration at not being able to spell the words.

We used the same sort of system; with some of the kids I had to sit next to them and encourage them to sound out each word in succession. There were even some I had to prod to remember what letters make certain sounds.

You have to remember that your child is getting far more support for her education than at least half the kids in the school district. The kids I was working with were mostly from the low end of the socioeconomic spectrum; they didn't have parents that read to them or helped them with their homework. The concept of combining vowels to make different sounds would have been far beyond their comprehension at the stage they were at.

From what I have seen, it's far more beneficial to encourage the child to communicate their thoughts through writing than to insist on proper spelling and grammar at this stage. School will not fail your daughter. And with you as a parent, she will certainly not grow up dumb. Continue to supplement her education where you see the need.

Have you had parent-teacher conferences yet? It would be a good time to bring up some of these concerns, and would help the teacher be able to tailor her interactions with your daughter to encourage her to develop at a quicker rate than the rest of the class, which she seems capable of doing.

I guess I'm having a hard time adjusting to someone else with different methods taking over. (Especially when "but the teacher said...." gets thrown in my face as refutation.)

:-(

That sounds hard. As a fellow control freak, I applaud your awareness of the problem, though. It's usually three days after the fight-to-the-death argument-with-loved-one when I finally think, "Huh. Maybe I didn't actually have to be right just then?"

And that's with grown-up people I'm not actually responsible for. I suspect it's a wee bit harder with one's own children.

I know jrossi, it is hard. I was constantly questioning before and for the first few weeks of Kindergarten. I'm a control freak too and I questioned everything from,

"Why do kindergarten aged children have to take a nap? I want my kid to be learning! He hasn't napped since he was three-years old."

"Why do they serve these horrid nutritionally deprived lunches on styrofoam trays?"

Why are they teaching colors? Most of these kids have known their colors since they were two.

I was a lunatic. :) I was writing letters to the editor, that were published, and some not, fortunately, about our school district's state of affairs before he started school. When we got into the school of our choice and I visited the kid's classroom, and volunteered at literacy stations, I realized that I had tremendous respect for the teachers, and their standards were high. I was very happy and confident with the research-based curriculum and teaching methods.

And the nap was a welcome break even if he stared into space and he loves those horrid lunches!

Is homeschooling a possibility?

This would have driven me wild.