agonyaunt | (no subject)

My son is in fifth grade and about to start middle school. He is a great kid all around, and in terms of school he is dutiful, listens well, is responsible, does his homework, has great friends, and generally does well and gets good grades. He prefers math and science at school over reading and writing, but he does read nightly at home. My question is this: His handwriting and spelling are atrocious. Do I need to spend some time having him work on these things this summer before he starts middle school? His teachers seem to know what he’s saying in spite of the bad handwriting and spelling (analisses for analysis, for example). But I look at his handwriting and spelling myself and shudder. He and I have had conversations about it over the years, but have never made any real concerted effort on either of these fronts since he’s doing well. And with other younger kids to take care of at home, I haven’t had the bandwidth to deal, but maybe it’s time. I’d love your thoughts.

—Trying to Weigh What Matters

Oh, your son reminds me of one of my favorite student writers of all time—he was inventive, and his stories had great structure … and his spelling was 100 percent phonetic. One time he wrote a story about the Revalooshunary War.

As for whether you should work on his spelling and handwriting over the summer, I think it depends. I’m a single mom of twin 4.5-year-olds, one of whom has Down syndrome, and so when you say you don’t have the bandwidth, I get it. Since becoming a mom myself, I’ve relaxed quite a bit my expectations of the academic tasks parents should pursue with their kids. I used to say parents should read with their kids for 20 minutes every night; now I sometimes blow off reading my kids a bedtime story! There are nights when getting their teeth brushed is all I can manage.

Also, it’s going to depend on your son’s middle school environment. Do they use computers for writing tasks? If so, well, that’s what readable fonts and spellcheck are for!

If not, yes, you could try to work with him on it. Here’s my suggestion: Don’t make him wrong. Tell him the way he’s doing it is OK, and you want him to have another tool for his belt. I used to be a strict prescriptive grammarian—there were rules we all must follow; things were correct or incorrect. After reading a lot of books and hearing people’s stories over the last 15 years, my relationship to grammar has changed. I still love studying it and understanding it, but grammar rules are classist, elitist, and ableist. In most instances, as long as you’re getting your point across to your audience, what’s the harm in nonstandard language (or spelling or handwriting)?

That being said, code-switching is a valuable skill, and knowing politically dominant English is an asset. So now I don’t correct my students’ grammar; instead, I tell them, “That’s how you’d say it with your friends, but in this argumentative essay, you need to write it this way.” With your son, you could say, “That’s how you’d write your grocery list—as long as you can read it, who cares? But let’s pretend you’re writing a letter to your congressperson,” and have him practice writing in his best handwriting and using the dictionary to look up the spellings of words.

But again, if it feels like too much for you, just enjoy your summer, and bring it up with his teachers at the beginning of the year. Let them know his specific struggles, and ask them to help. That’s what they’re there for.

—Ms. Scott

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Two things.

First, bad spelling plus bad handwriting in a kid this age? Has he been evaluated for a learning disability such as dysgraphia? Maybe it's just my bias talking, but by middle school I'd definitely check it out if there's a pernicious lack of improvement in a core area like this.

Secondly, good job Ms. Scott in learning the difference between "this is wrong" and "this isn't the way we say it in a formal essay", but that doesn't mean that "grammar rules are elitist". All dialects have grammar rules. All of them! It's just a. they don't always match up with the standard dialect and b. people have weird ideas about grammar that involve a lot of shibboleths (and outright myths) about style rather than syntax.

First, bad spelling plus bad handwriting in a kid this age? Has he been evaluated for a learning disability such as dysgraphia? Maybe it's just my bias talking, but by middle school I'd definitely check it out if there's a pernicious lack of improvement in a core area like this.

Yeah, my first thought was something like Dyspraxia.

And a diagnosis could lead to an IEP = the school may have to provide a classroom aide so he could get more intensive help.

A teacher stretched trying to cover 25 or 30 kids may not be able to give him the intensive help that he needs.

Dysgraphia was also my thought (if it was just the handwriting, I'd say he should be evaluated for dyspraxia, especially if there were other physical indicators, but the spelling issues make me wonder about dysgraphia specifically.)

If he needs an IEP, now is a really good time to get it in place!

Yes, both of these. Or, in more detail, eh should definitely be evaluated, and, though grammar rules can be used in elitist ways, they are not *necessarily* elitist.

Same.

My atrocious handwriting in 4th grade resulted in me being allowed to submit anything long-form typed up. Typing and the proper use of spell checkers/dictionaries to confirm the actual spelling of the word you know and intend will serve this kid very well in the future.

Yeah. I mean, I’m personally in the process of finding someone I can afford who can do this eval for my older kid — this isn’t something practice is going to solve for him, because if it was his handwriting would be more legible by now than it is — and I’m really surprised it wasn’t suggested here.

My first thought was "the kid is in fifth grade and he *knows* the word analysis? I think he's doing fine."

If he was misspelling first-hand grade words, or having trouble with his letters, maybe have him evaluated or do extra work But if your first example is a good phonetic rendering of a fairly advanced Greek word, and his teachers aren't worried, I think you can probably let it slide, unless his dream is to be a spelling bee champ.

And if both you, he, and his teacher can read his writing, it's good enough for a computer age.

He probably is fine, for the reason you stated, but I always believe in the rule of "When in doubt, check it out." In the US, the public school system is required to have your child evaluated at your request (even if that child does not attend public school), so you might as well get them tested so you know and can stop worrying about it.

(So says somebody who shelled out thousands for a dyslexia diagnosis because the schools are shitty about dyslexia. But we did do the public school route first.)

yeah, I guess it's just : from the perspective of someone who's not a parent (and being a parent does change all the perspectives) I've known plenty of kids who might actually have had a diagnosable learning difficulty around a certain skill, but it put them at the level of "gets B in Above Average classes instead of A in Gifted classes, in that one subject". And the result of the diagnosis is they put a huge amount of importance and effort into this thing they're *perfectly competent at*, at the expense of working on things they're interested in and/or already skilled at, or teaching them joy.

If it's causing them distress because it's something *they* want to be able to do better, or it's something that's reasonably likely to cause much bigger difficulties down the road, then it's definitely worth doing whatever you can.

But misspelling 'analysis' as a ten-year-old is neither of those things.

And sometimes it's actually more worthwhile to let the kid be less than gifted at something, and teach them that it's not a disaster or a disease to be bad at some things sometimes.

Additionally, now is a great time to get him typing and learning how to use an office suite, especially if he ends up having dysgraphia. (Also if learning disorder, it is a good time to get familiar with offices of disability/accessibility services - typing instead of handwriting is absolutely a reasonable accommodation.)

Yeah, my daughter has really atrocious handwriting (so did I at her age, and it still takes a conscious effort to write anything like neatly), which is why we're glad her school has them doing longer writing assignments on the computer.

So now I don’t correct my students’ grammar; instead, I tell them, “That’s how you’d say it with your friends, but in this argumentative essay, you need to write it this way.

this made me happy.

Me, too!

Also, for anybody dealing with this specific type of bad-but-phonetic spelling with an older child, I strongly recommend you get a systematic morphemic spelling curriculum.

We've been using Apples and Pears, which is designed for children with learning disabilities (or, as the UK calls them, "learning differences") and it has done wonders for my dyslexic niece's spelling.

For kids who probably don't have a learning disability but who just need a little extra push, I've heard great things about Megawords.

Yeah, my thoughts (similarly to other people) was both a: if the teachers aren't worried, you don't need to be, and b: if you can't stop worrying, definitely time for a learning disability evaluation. Also yay for teaching kids grammar/spelling descriptively rather than prescriptively.

This sounds like every ten year old I know. Here, in Scotland, it seems that high school and the change to pens from pencils and the need to write longer reports ect improves both spelling and grammar. Some people never get out of spelling phonetically either and that is okay. Check everything official of course but for me it matters more that your answers make sense and show you understand the topic than your way off point answer is spelled perfectly and written properly. I also think before the ages of 11 or 12, there is a lot of 'this is how you write' and trying to make everyone write the same way when no one actually does.