What (if anything) have recent Literacy initiatives taught our children?

Dictionaries don’t help with poor spelling.
It’s very hard to look up a word in a dictionary if you can’t spell it correctly. You have to have the first three letters correct as a minimum.
Obviously, if you can’t find the word and you are using a respectable dictionary, you learn that your spelling is incorrect, but that doesn’t help you to learn the correct spelling.

Witzend

My favourite in the ‘for sale’ ads was a ‘chez lounge’ (chaise longue).
seen plenty of ‘dinning’ tables, too.

However my favourite ever, by a young Omani chap in my class when I was TEFL-ing, was ‘nacad’. This was in reply to the question, ‘What do you become when you don’t sleep for a long time?’
Bursting to laugh, I asked where he’d learnt that word.
‘I work a lot with English soldier!’ 😂

A ‘dinning’ table in Glasgow.

Oh no - no split infinitives thank you. My pet peeve is " less" used where the correct word is " fewer". Sadly, it is included thus in the Mathematics National Curriculum

4allweknow

On about spelling, can someone please explain why I write loose and sound the word with a short oo (as in the rope is a bit loose). Then when sounding lose it is given a long oooo (he is going to lose the game) Yet choose is given a long oooo and chose a short oo.
I am positive when at primary school very early 50s choose and loose were both sounded the same ie long ooo.

The oo sound is the same in the words loose, goose and choose, the difference is in the s sounds. The loose and goose have a hard s whereas choose has a soft s. As to lose, that is just a vagary of our language, logically speaking it should be the same o sound as in chose.

Chocolatelovinggran

Oh no - no split infinitives thank you. My pet peeve is " less" used where the correct word is " fewer". Sadly, it is included thus in the Mathematics National Curriculum

Oh go on, please let me.
I like to boldly go where no Gransnetters dares to venture.

Oh dear, typo? Sp? Or grammar?
😂

Some people are dyslexic.
Some people do suffer from certain confusions and get words mixed up. My MIL used to utter spoonerisms but never realised.

It seems to be quite normal for people to suffer from dyscalculia or to just dislike mathematics generally and laugh about it but not so spelling and grammar.

A quick trip around my town has previously revealed the following:

Washing up bowls stacked outside a £1 shop with the handwritten label 'Bowels'.

A box of apples stacked outside the greengrocers with a handwritten sign 'Cock's'.

😂😂😂

Yrnetn
I'm still not getting it .....

My dear mum, who I now suspect was dyslexic (compounded by very patchy schooling) used to write me weekly letters when I moved away from home.

She wrote as she spoke, with poor spelling, little or no punctuation and very few capital letters. Her handwriting was poor. It would sometimes take me a while to decipher what she was trying to say.

She was a voracious reader of historical romance novels, loved a word search book and never shied away from writing long informative (gossipy!) letters to me.

She recognised her own failings in this regard, but she never stopped trying and she often said if things had been different she would have loved to have been an English teacher.

Callistemon21

Yrnetn
I'm still not getting it .....

I've worked out, Yr as Why are but I'm stuck on the rest!?

Is it ‘Whyaren’t’ ?

I did wonder that, but the e isn't sounding and the t and the n are the wrong way round? Who knows?

How to waste 10 minutes of my leisurely breakfast time! 😆

I haven't seem much analysis in the thread of differences in standards of literacy pre and post the introduction of the literacy strategy, but I think the point is that we now have far more exposure to the written English of a wider population.
In the past, published writing was mainly limited to the more highly educated. I can certainly remember as a young teacher being shocked by the poor literacy of the letters sent in by parents.
I agree with flappergirl that before the widespread use of social media, we simply did not see it, because there were very few channels for publication.

SuperTinny

My dear mum, who I now suspect was dyslexic (compounded by very patchy schooling) used to write me weekly letters when I moved away from home.

She wrote as she spoke, with poor spelling, little or no punctuation and very few capital letters. Her handwriting was poor. It would sometimes take me a while to decipher what she was trying to say.

She was a voracious reader of historical romance novels, loved a word search book and never shied away from writing long informative (gossipy!) letters to me.

She recognised her own failings in this regard, but she never stopped trying and she often said if things had been different she would have loved to have been an English teacher.

Ah, that's a lovely memory of your dear mum, and what a kind, understanding teacher she would doubtless have been too.
So pleased she had so much pleasure from her writing and loved reading her novels. The friends we find between the pages help us so much!

LucyAnna2

Is it ‘Whyaren’t’ ?

🤔
Not sure

Callistemon21

Yrnetn
I'm still not getting it .....

Wire netting?

😁

Looking at her stuff on sluts I found Katharine Whitehorn on grammar www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2011/nov/06/katharine-whitehorn-grammar-pedants

Yrnetn = your knitting?

Could be!! 👍

You’re not in?

Where's Grandmajean?