MANY British primary school children are struggling with spelling, according to a recent report by the UK Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA), an organization that maintains and develops the British national curriculum and associated assessments, tests and examinations, the Daily Telegraph has reported.
Officials from the QCA surveyed more than 2,000 11-year-olds and found that more than two-thirds of pupils could not correctly spell "approached", "rigid" and "cautiously". More than three-quarters could not spell "surveyed" correctly. Other common words that posed a problem for about half of the pupils were "doubt" and "scattered", for example. The word most often spelt incorrectly was "ravenously", which four out of five pupils got wrong.
Alan Smithers, the Director of the Center for Education and Employment Research at the University of Buckingham, UK, said some of the spellings should be "second nature" to children by the time they leave primary school and that accurate spelling is crucial for them to be able to express themselves clearly. "Many of today's teachers went through a system when spelling was not thought of as important and it may be that they are not sufficiently confident to correct children's spellings continually so pupils can learn from their mistakes," he added.
The UK's education watchdog, the Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills (Ofsted), warned that British school standards have "stalled" as so many pupils leave primary education unable to read or write properly. Despite the UK Government's efforts to improve literacy and the implementation of the UK National Literacy Strategy began in 1998 in primary schools, pupils have failed to grasp basic English.
According to Michael Gove, Shadow Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, the QCA report showed the strategy was not working. "This research reveals a very worrying picture of under attainment. The pupils are still struggling with basic spelling and the building blocks of literacy," he said.
But Mick Brookes, the General Secretary of the UK National Association of Head Teachers, defended standards in primary schools and said the spelling test was challenging for any age group.
