Monday, June 18, 2012

Creative spelling test


I can't resist. I have come across some rather creative attempts to spell a variety of words in the last few weeks. It is amazing what you can piece together when you read the writing in context - we can usually pick out the remnants of a sentence from some letters scrawled together. But take those words out of context, and it can be a bit harder.

Let's see if you can decipher the following gems (answers at the bottom):
  • enjoibul
  • krer
  • menchend
  • helfyer
  • prefeshernel
  • aspeshilly
  • ikspirins
  • adsbtle soten
  • enifing
  • dilshersh
  • opertunerys
  • anafe
  • oppsions
  • exwizard
  • oldenuf
  • slekshen
  • cejest
  • enfusiasome
and these food/cooking related words:
  • pisser
  • disurt
  • buggers
  • lezzunyer
  • spededy bulinays (there were many, many variations on this)
  • snisal

How did you do???
  • enjoyable
  • career
  • mentioned 
  • healthier
  • professional
  • especially
  • experience
  • absolutely certain
  • anything
  • delicious
  • opportunities
  • enough
  • options
  • exquisite
  • old enough
  • selection
  • suggest
  • enthusiasm
and
  • pizza
  • dessert (not to be confused with desert)
  • burgers
  • lasagne
  • spaghetti bolognese
  • schnitzel

You'll be relieved to know (or maybe you don't give a toss, but humour me) that we mark each criteria independently - so if they are attempting to add some interesting words they score for vocabulary, even if they are spelt incorrectly. It is rare a kid is good at everything. Often they write well, have good sentence structure, can spell well, but can't punctuate to save their life. 

And another thing I have learnt (or learned - apparently both are OK - I always wondered about that) is that you can't judge a piece of writing on the handwriting. I have read brilliant pieces that were a bit difficult to decipher because of the appalling handwriting (bring on uni and computers for those kids!) and I have been presented with beautiful handwriting, but a banal attempt at the task. 

On that note, I have marked 1050 scripts, spent 27 nights away from home, had 20 takeaway/restaurant meals (despite the fact that I can, in fact, cook), and had about a billion cups of tea and coffee. Oh! And out of 208 markers, only 5 were not "out of range" (read 'accurate') on the control scripts - and one of them was little old me! A first-time marker, and a science teacher to boot! I'm pretty proud of myself.

I actually got to work with some lovely, lovely people, who I will miss when I go back home. But there is thankfully Facebook and maybe we will reunite next year.



But I've finished Naplan for this year and am headed back to normality (as soon as I can figure out what is normal anyway). See you there!

5 comments:

  1. Thanks for giving us a good laugh in this household. You know, maybe it's because you are a science teacher that you were accurate with your marking. In the English OU we had peer group monitoring and the monitor usually agreed with my mark to within 2 percent.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Well, you know what Bill Nye says "science rules!". I think the marking rubric is very logical and I'd like to think I'm pretty competent! But I beat out many more experienced markers and I'm very proud to be one of the last 5 standing.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Wow, very impressive all the way around. I'm sure you're happy to put it all behind you now.

    Maybe you can answer this; how can a certain child of mine have the correct spelling of the word in front of him and still misspell it? I've decided it just isn't important to him. So my quandry is how to make it important.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It was an interesting experience, but I've had enough now and glad to be headed home.

      You have no idea how many kids copied words from the prompt incorrectly (including 'learn', 'cook' (!), 'everybody', 'conclusion'. Incorrect copying can be a sign of poor working memory or even vision problems (if copying from the board)or possibly even dyslexia.

      Some kids do well on "spelling tests" (either written or verbal) but can't translate that to good spelling in a written piece of work (ditto for grammar).

      Just goes to show how complex and difficult writing really is. That said, I wish more kids could do it!

      Delete
  4. Growing up in America I learned that learnt was wrong, I still find it unsettling to read it all over Aussie blogs!

    ReplyDelete

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