Michael Morpurgo’s article in The Guardian about how teaching kids to love writing being more important than grammar is a gentle warning about the damage our Education System is causing children who struggle with spelling and grammar.
When I woke up this morning, the first article I saw was on The Guardian website. Written by Amy Fleming, the article featured the acclaimed author of War Horse and more recently When Fishes Flew: The Story of Elena’s War, Michael Morpurgo talking about how children in Key Stage 2 are being faced with having to get their heads around the technicalities of grammar, to ‘analyse language’ in a way that restricts and inhibits rather than encouraging creativity.
He goes on to talk about how when he was a teacher in the 1970’s he was ‘free of such burdens’ and as such was able to concentrate on helping children to ‘find their own voices’. To discover the ‘music in language’ and to express thoughts. He feels that this is what literacy is for.
As a writer myself, when I first started I would worry incessantly about making mistakes that would eventually go out live on this blog and it didn’t take long for me to realise that in making that my focus I was steadily not enjoying the process of writing my articles.
As an adult who has been through the school system, I had to make the mental adjustment and tell myself that it is what I want to communicate that is more important, than that of achieving correct spelling and grammar. That is not to say that spelling and grammar is not important because I know that if one messes that up in stories and blog articles then this can be distracting or can distort what the writer is trying to convey, but there are ways to overcome problems with spelling and grammar such as using spell check software such as Oribi’s Verity Spell that not only highlights errors but also teaches the user about the mistake so that they can learn to do better next time.
“Some years ago, I was made to do a key stage 2 (seven to 11 years old) English test. I don’t even want to tell you how I did, but it wasn’t good. I find expressions such as “fronted adverbials” and “subordinate conjunctions” extraordinarily abstract and difficult to get my head around. But we’re stuck in the Michael Gove era, in which children are trained in analysing language in a way that seems to me to restrict and inhibit, rather than to encourage creativity.”
In the Guardian article, Michael Morpurgo mentions how on World Book Day he was asked if he ever made mistakes. His answer is inspiring.
“On World Book Day this year, a pupil asked me: “Do you ever make mistakes?” Of course I make mistakes. When I’m working on my own books, I often slip into a slack way of saying things, which is too oral, if you like. I’m reminded about it fairly firmly by good editors, and that’s fine – it’s a way of improving what’s already there, and refining it. My spelling isn’t that great, either; I’m quite ashamed of that sometimes. My grandson can spell things better than me. But that’s OK. It’s just a side of me that needs improvement.”
Michael manages his ‘technical difficulties’ with literacy by finding resources that help him to do better such as getting the support from ‘good editors’ . He doesn’t need to be brilliant with spelling and grammar, but he does need to be brilliant at telling stories and this is certainly what he is known for.
How can we help our children who are struggling with the technicalities of literacy?
I truly believe that when the focus on literacy is getting good grades or passing exams and not the actual learning of a subject then those with dyslexia will struggle simply because this focus is demotivating. This focus plays to the weaknesses of one with dyslexia. It is not that being motivated simply evaporates the issues of using spelling and grammar, but being motivated to learn means that a child has a greater desire to seek support so that they can continue to enjoy their learning.
Ways in helping with motivating a child with learning could be:
Be kind and non-judgemental with your feedback. Help them to understand their mistakes but don’t make those mistakes a big deal.
Focus on the message that they are writing. Talk to them about what they are trying to say and position spelling and grammar as a way to help them to communicate their learning effectively rather than making spelling and grammar the main issue for criticism.
Use assistive technology to support learning good spelling and grammar strategies such as using Oribi Verity Spell.
Use assistive technology to proofread written work by letting the computer read it out. If there are spelling and grammar mistakes then hearing them out loud is a great way to find and understand the impact of those mistakes. There are features in Microsoft Office that help with reading out written text but other programs such as TextAid will also read out written text whilst also providing other useful features such as reading out electronic text books too. Read this article for more about this.