Why do upper grade students still misspell basic words like their?
Even older students and high achievers routinely misspell simple words like their, there, and fridge because early errors go uncorrected out of fear of discouraging them. This lack of intervention allows spelling habits to deteriorate year after year, leaving high school and AP students unable to rely on basic orthography.
What the numbers show
Counted from the threads quoted below. How we count
- This comes up 16.7× more often in r/Teachers than across the site as a whole.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
- 1Using basic phonics practice and nonsense wordsDid this help you?
- 2Providing firm, consistent, loving correctionsDid this help you?
- 3Relying on spellcheck and technologyDid this help you?
- 4Trying to fit in brief daily phonics practice against administrative adviceDid this help you?
- 5Reading together frequently with a parentDid this help you?
- 6Studying spelling relentlessly at homeDid this help you?
- 7Using school-provided AIS servicesDid this help you?
- 8Considering educational apps like Night Zookeeper or tools targeting younger children's basicsDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“Upper elementary reading teacher here🙋🏼♀️ I just assessed 25 of my approx. 32 students I’ll be working with this year to get a sense of what lessons I’ll be starting on, and only 2 of them correctly spelled the word “their”……”source ↗
“I teach 8th graders, most of whom "qualify as gifted and talented" and they don't have a clue how to spell "their" either”source ↗
“My students this year are terrible readers and writers. They spell everything phonetically. They can't decode. So I wanted to add phonics into our day to day. Just five- ten minutes s a day. I was told "that's not necessary, they aren't graded on their state exams for spelling so don't make more work for yourself" "those skills aren't even related".”source ↗
“My Senior year AP student filled out a beginning of the year questionnaire with "frige" and "edgjucate"”source ↗
“Seems like every year it gets a bit worse with the basic spelling stuff, my niece in 4th grade writes "there" for everything and nobody corrects it because they dont want to discourage her”source ↗
“Most of my juniors don’t know how to do it either”source ↗
“She is behind a few grade levels with reading. She starts middle school next year and I am worried about her struggles with reading and spelling causing a lot of stress as her curriculum becomes more advanced.”source ↗
“She does currently receive AIS services but I just don’t see much growth with them.”source ↗
“As many parents know children just don’t want to work and study with their parents.”source ↗
“I am concerned that she actually fell behind in earlier grades and that now they aren’t working on those skills anymore in a way she needs.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 3Why don't students know how to type a web address?
- 2What to do when you can't understand a student's speech impediment
- 8Why won't students do the reading assignments?
- 4Why do my child's school grades make no sense?
- 2Why do homework questions have no explanation or poor wording?
- 4Teaching grade level standards when students are extremely behind