I love to text like the next gal. I love my iPhone and tweet with the best of them. I can fit my political angst and bible verses into 140 characters most days. But what affect is texting having on this new generation of kids who are growing up with smart phones… ready to ooze instant brain drool straight from their subconscious into the forever-cataloged online world of Facebook and Google? The lack of filter and grammar these days is becoming more and more apparent.
If you aren’t aware of the fact that our college entrants in America are lacking, just check out the latest statistics… apparently only 37% of 12th graders sampled from over 740 schools across the USA were ready for college-level classes in Math and Reading. Yes, reading. Which would explain some of the writing issues.
I know… WHAAAT???
Learning how to effectively communicate verbally and in written form is a serious business. One should not flippantly fritter away their formal education with texting fingers and slang; they might just come to need it one day. We should stop arguing about whether to teach cursive and start looking to our teaching predecessors from an age when literacy was at an all-time high in America. Check out this little final exam for 8th Grade in 1895… and see if YOU can pass it!
See if your homeschooled kids can find all the problems with this little poem I got via email over a decade ago…
This Poem has Been Spell Checked
————————————–
Eye halve a spelling chequer
It came with my pea sea
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.
Eye strike a key and type a word
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.
As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite
Its rare lea ever wrong.
Eye have run this poem threw it
I am shore your pleased two no
Its letter perfect awl the weigh
My chequer tolled me sew.~ Unknown
Inspire your kids to want to be good spellers, writers, and grammar-Nazis. Share this little video with them:
Take this as your warning, homeschool moms… you may be the last front against the assault on English. Grab your grammar workbooks, your Ruth Beechick books, your Blue Back Spellers with renewed vigor! Press on!
In Him,