Ok. My mistake.

The article is a load of Bollocks though. She is talking out of her arse if you ask me. My 7 year old son is dealing with all these complicated words now. It's just down to the parents to ensure they put the time and effort in. Is this women making excuses for the kids or the parents?

Interesting article - thanks for posting.

My 2¢.
I've taught secondary English on both sides of the pond - can't say I've seen any big differences between pedagogy and student ability. An underlying problem re spelling (more specifically literacy) is a massive societal and educational problem, including:

*Poor grounding in the parts of speech (K-4).
*Low number of children reading - and generally poor readers at that.
*Lack of writing with follow-up revision; both at school and at home.
*Numerous distractions affecting studies and schooling (xbox/Teh Internez/DVD/TV/sports/shopping malls/part-time work). E-mail, chat, texting and twitter all shit on the English language.
*Weakening schooling systems and teaching (i.e class size, teacher training (pedagogy), interfering bureaucracy, et al.).
*An overemphasis upon math and science in school (I've never seen a colleague "mark" a math/science assignment/test for SP/PU/GRM).
*Lazyness.
*Chinglish instructions .
*And the biggest problem: poor parenting. In these great democracies of Can/UK, parents have demanded and pressured kids, schools, instititutions to be more accepting and inclusive. Homogeneity and big-box blah average is the norm. Parents insist that their kids succeed regardless - regardless of the child's real ability, work ethic, and actual accomplishments.

However, basic language skills aside, English is an evolving and changing language - maybe we are old school and can't adapt to the times?

this amused me and is vaguely related

This hits the nail on the head for me. Being a parent is like a second career. If we want to make a success of it, you simply have to put the time and effort in. Just blaming the school system is an excuse. I want my children to go out into their adult lives with as many skills as we can help equip them with. This includes a good education, social skills and good habits such as healthy eating and an appreciation in sport and physical exercise.

If we rely on the schools to provide these skills alone, then we doing our kids a disservice.

This seems reasonable......

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education...education.html

Irony eh? Do reactionary rants about liberals and "doo gooders" get counted as that now-a-days?

Ahem. I think we have a glass house/stone interface situation.

<and a coat moment>

Have you read Freakanomics?

The author makes a similar assertion in his book. The study reveals similar findings to that of the article above. He elaborates by saying there is a strong correlation between the number of books in a home with the level of education of the parents. With more books being owned by the more educated parents. He then suggests that just filling your home with books will not guarantee a better educated child, but that this is affected by the level of education of the parent (i.e. their attitude towards education and the child inheriting the parents genes).

The study in the Telegraph is suggesting that irrespective of a parents education, if they like to read and promote reading, this will have a positive impact on the child's own education. So in other words, just because somebody didn't go to university doesn't make them thick and unable, or unwilling, to make a positive contribution to their child's education by promoting reading in the home.

Phew. I'm done writing now.

The first part of his post used Irony. The second part was a bit of a rant, I grant you. However, I don't think the employment of irony is in any way dependent of the subject matter.

Did you ever read Viz? The Modern Parents were a classic example of having a bash at liberal do gooders in a very ironic way.

I guess you can say it used irony.

And?

I am aware of the exploits of Malcolm and Cressida.

While in your first paragraph, the general, is true, the second is very rare. There is little debate that, in general, the the educational achievement level of parents will determine the educational achievement success of the child.

And little Tarquin. Then there was 'Spoiled Bastard'. Another fine example of how not to raise children.

Then of course there was my favourite Sid the Sexist. I won't mention the two lovely ladies.

John Fardell did the best stuff in viz (Modern parents and the critics were my favourites).

Agreed. But the study is suggesting that any parent, regardless of their level of education can make a positive impact on their child's education by promoting reading in the home. Of course the likelihood of this is probably far lower amongst the lesser educated parents.

Which leads to problems of causation vs correlation. Though I'm sure the people doing the stats on this kind of thing know how to factor that out.