Why doesn't anyone know how to spell anymore?

That one is sooo tricky!!! Spelling is not as big a deal anymore and it is a shame. I am a communication arts teacher to 8th graders and I have students who can't even spell "their," "there," and "they're" correctly. The thing is where I live, the kids are told for their state standardized tests that their spelling DOESN"T matter... it's more important that they get their point across whether words are spelled correctly or not.

So often times anymore, the focus is on the skills of writing and reading comprehension which is low all over the US. I try to emphasize the importance of spelling properly to ALL of my students. As they get closer to college, they do not want to look uneducated when they can't spell correctly on their college application.

PLUS... it doesn't help matters much when the music that the kids listen to these days has horrible grammar as well using "mines" for mine... and saying things like "You don't mean nothing at all to me" in the songs!! And we wonder where our kids learn this stuff!!!!!

That's a pet peeve of mine. I agree that teacher's are not holding the kids to an elevated spelling standard any longer. There is no penalty for not spelling correctly. We're not talking typo's which everyone makes, but obvious problems like not knowing the difference between lose and loose.

In addition to this trend we are also seeing more than our share of illiteracy thanks to the Internet where anyone, literate, lazy, or otherwise, can post their thoughts.

I am forgiving of grammar mistakes. Grammar is a tough area to excel in at all times and holding people to high level grammar standards in casual Internet conversation might be too much to ask. I do appreciate the appearance of literacy and effort when I encounter it; even on the Internet.

I think it would be a good idea if it was stressed more in school work too. I find my child gets a great deal of spelling word assignments but none work as well as individual repetitive writing of the words. Making up a story and doing cross word puzzles with a list of spelling words just isn't cutting it as far as getting the children to memorize the spelling words. Back to basics would be good here. Write it, write and write it again. Boring but it works.

There is nothing wrong with using spell check too. I use it all the time. I need to.

I agree with you. My best friend's little girl brought home an essay the other day, not one of her spelling errors were marked and/or corrected. My parents used to give us 5 words everyday to look up. They would tell us, not spell the words, and we would have to look them up, spell them correctly, write the definitions, use them in a sentence, AND write a story or an essay using them. I think that the focus on computers and technology is too much. There is an instant spell check so nobody has to spell correctly. I'm with you. My teachers always corrected or marked errors wrong and made me fix them. I also had teachers who made me write misspelled words five times each. I am dyslexic on top of that. I learned somewhat quickly how to spell. Teachers and parents need to be a bit more strict on this.

The extensive PC input to the education system has made the academic aspect of education secondary in many institutions. The same may be said of simple arithmetic; I once saw a cartoon in Scientific American: A father said to his son "If you had five electronic calculators and I took away two, how many would you have left?". The answer is still awaited.

In addition to being unable to spell, many contributors to YA appear to be unable to use the spell checker.

The current school of thought on the teaching of writing is that we focus on getting ideas written. We teach children that the content is more important than mechanics so that they fully understand that they indeed have something to say as a writer. After a piece is written, we do teach about revision which includes conventional spelling.

The problems is the combination of it not being reinforced in classrooms and variant spelling. Spelling of the same word in Canada can vary directly by what country you are in. Eavestrough for example, is a word that only 'exists' in Canada. With these variances and the the fact that no child is taught by one language class, spelling these days are quite different than in the past.

Well, When I went to school the same thing happened...If you wrote a report in math, science, or anything else...spelling counted...-2 points for every error, and you had to rewrite it to get credit sometimes if it was real bad. I think people are too used to writing short messages via cell phones that they have become lazy in their spelling.

I agree, it's almost scary isn't it. I'd like to think it's because their just in a hurry,but I doubt it.

Look at some of the responses,they think it's a joke. Just wait till they actually have to use grammar to get a job.

Teachers must start reinforcing the importance of proper English. Will it happen universally? We can only hope.

I totally agree with you. I find myself automatically correcting people when i chat with them in messenger. Even though people use the chat/sms shortcuts at least you can still understand what they are saying. Look at a lot of the questions asked on Y!Answers, so many people cannot spell, it's frightening to see what world our kids will be growing up in.