Been harping on this since I graduated with a BA in English 10 years ago: MOST people, kids included, can’t implement the written language like our predecessors.
Texting, Tweeting, instant messages, and email brevity all lead the charge for linguistic simplicity that eschews proper vocabulary, grammar, and spelling. Kids don’t want to know how to properly use myriad (note: it’s an adjective not a noun) or the difference between you’re and your or they’re, their, and there. They don’t care about serial commas or proper punctuation. They don’t care about ALL CAPS or exclamations!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’d bet that Florida isn’t alone in this country, but it’s the most prevalent due to the increase of standards for the FCAT which left MOST kids in the dust on their scorecards.
FWIW, Florida used to have a program called “Florida Writes” where assessments were given to 8th, 10th, and 12th graders on writing skills. Charlie Crist did away with that, IIRC. I scored a 6/6 every time I took it. Those of us who scored a 6/6 usually numbered under 5 for the entire school.
The unfortunate thing is that if you cannot write well, you likely also cannot think clear thoughts.
Texting, Tweeting, instant messages, and email brevity all lead the charge for linguistic simplicity that eschews proper vocabulary, grammar, and spelling.
Why do you speak in acronyms?
FWIW, IIRC.
Irony.
Kids don’t want to know how to properly use myriad (note: it’s an adjective not a noun)
Since myriad can be used as a noun meaning 10,000. By the way, Milton used it as a noun.
Of course, we have stopped teaching Greek and Latin, so the etymology of words is lost on today's student.
By the way, I remember a move back in the '90s to change certain plurals, such as appendices to appendixes and indices to indexes. Is this bastardization still going on?
I agree. I would also add the fact that few kids read for pleasure anymore. I briefly had a Facebook account, and during that time I would check my teenaged niece's page. I was appalled at how many of her "friends" said they don't read. If you don't see the English language used properly, how can you learn to use it yourself?
It started before there was such a thing as a cell phone. I went to public school starting in the middle 70s and I never learned to write properly. I was a guinea pig for the in fashion educational theories that rejected teaching the basics and rules of proper grammar, etc. When my children come home with homework around phonics I have to hit the internet to even try to understand what they are doing.
Rather than make children feel bad about themselves, teachers were instructed to ignore those standards and focus on the child's "narrative."