The Rules of Spelling Retaught for College Students?
Many people have difficulty with the rules of spelling in one form or another. Mistakes such as spelling deceive as “decieve” prove to be a common error that is easily made by professional writers. The phrase to that is taught by many English teachers, “i before e except after c” holds true to words like the such of; grieve, deceive, piece, and many other words that have “ie” and “cei” pattern. In addition to the phrase’s usefulness, the phrase is also very easily remembered.
When it comes to college students, the teaching of phonics has generally ceased. Though this type of teaching is normally not needed, “however, periodically students who could benefit from this type of instruction do appear in college reading classes.”(Yaworski 2002, p.91) According to a study by Yaworski, sometimes teaching the rules of spelling, or phonics should be offered to college students.
One college student from Yaworski’s study had shown incredible progress during the course of a phonics program. At the start of the phonics course, the student had many errors in her first journal entry and gradually improved until there were none in her final entry.(Yaworski 2002, p.91) Therefore, there is sometimes the need for such a program at the college level.
Despite the large amount of resources available to college students, many refuse to use these resources. According to comments by Savage, the rules of spelling are violated so often, it has become a joke. The title of his article, ‘All Would of Been Caos’ intentionally shows two errors. One error being the spelling of chaos, and the other being the grammatical error. If he decided to use correct grammar and spelling, the article may have very well been titled, “All Would’ve Been Chaos.”
In addition of being nagged by instructors, the peers of a student may as well comment or even bully the student who needs such help. As stated by Ultimate Vocabulary, one’s wealth of vocabulary is a major influence on a potential employer’s decision of hiring one or not in both verbal and written forms. That statement has been proven true many times over as people with a larger vocabulary, and good knowledge on the rules for spelling tend to get better jobs.
Today’s studies show that a good number of college students do not properly understand grammar. Perhaps actions taken by Yaworski’s study do indeed show that the rules of spelling need to be taught not only at the elementary level, but up to the college level as well, or even beyond. Though it is needed more so at the elementary level, it also a good idea to have lessons like these at the college level when needed.
References
Yaworski, J 2002 ‘When Should Fonnicks be Tot to Kollage Stewdents?’, Journal of College Reading and Learning, vol. 33, no. 1, pp.91-98, viewed 22 February 2009, <http://find.galegroup.com.ezproxy.apollolibrary.com/>
Savage Jr., W 2004 ‘All would have been Caos’, Journal of Scholarly Publishing, vol. 35, no. 4, pp.223-225, viewed 23 February 2009, <http://search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.apollolibrary.com/>
