Edstrom Educational Consulting

Greetings, faithful readers!

I am coming off of an inspiring evening speaking at a career fair with the Girl Scouts of San Diego-Imperial Council, hosted by the Junior League of San Diego.  During this event I addressed 50+ 6th through 9th graders about the career of “Teacher.”   I was a bit nervous…after all, most of these girls spend a lot of time at schools with teachers, so what would I have to add?  To make matters worse, there were some really cool jobs on the panel…gemologist, anyone?  I decided to talk with these girls about why I love to teach rather than what teaching was all about.  I explained about the creativity, the challenge of reaching all students, the humor required, and the joy of watching learning as it takes place.  Ultimately, remembering why I love education was important.  If you haven’t taken a moment recently to remember why you entered this field and why it is so wonderful…pause for a moment and remember.  It is completely revitalizing!

Our quick tip of the day is again in the area of writing.  We will be focusing on a tip for proofreading.  Proofreading is the final step in a writer’s workshop.  There is critical revising that deals with the structure, language and organization of writing that must come first.  Proofreading is the final step that deals with correcting errors with spelling and language conventions.

Yesterday I was forwarded an email (for the 100th time)  from a well-meaning friend that had the following text:

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh?

I have no idea if this was actually researched at Cambridge University, but I do know that it is pretty amazing how the brain works.  If you are like me, you can read this even though the words are misspelled.   This email reminded me of a powerful truth about children and their writing.  The brain takes over for students when proofreading their own writing. To make matters worse, there is a context surrounding a student’s own writing that makes it almost impossible to catch errors.  After all, when a student proofreads his/her own writing, he/she knows the intention and that pesky ability of the human brain to translate what we see on paper gets in the way.

So, to eliminate this problem, have students proofread their papers backwards.  Start at the end and read to the beginning.  This eliminates the context and allows the brain to catch errors far easily.  You will be amazed at the results of what students catch.  I told you this was a quick one and requires no materials!  I challenge you to try this in your classroom and let me know the results!   Check back soon, to see what other quick tips we have up our sleeves at Edstrom Educational Consulting!

P.S. Gold star for those that can tell me why I call this Jolly Caucus Race Proofreading!

Tags: assessment design, assessment design california, assessment design la jolla, blogs, Cambridge University, curriculum, curriculum design, education, educational blogs, Educational consulting, educational training, instructional seminars, Junior League, Products and Services, Teacher, Writing

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 8th, 2010 at 9:54 am and is filed under Tips for Teachers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.