There is a popular belief among parents that schools are no longer interested in spelling. No school I have taught in has ever ignored spelling or considered it unimportant as a basic skill. There are, however, vastly different ideas about how to teach it and how to encourage a child to write without holding him back with the complexities of spelling. If spelling becomes the only focal point of his teacher's interest, clearly a bright child will be likely to "play safe", He will tend to write only words with in his spelling range, choosing to avoid adventurous language. That's why teachers of ten encourage the early use of dictionaries and pay attention to content rather than technical ability. I was once shocked to read on the bottom of a piece of writing about a personal experience:" This work is terrible! There are far too many spelling errors and your writing is not neat." It may have been a sharp criticism of the pupil's technical abilities in writing. But it was also a sad reflection on the teacher who had omitted to read the essay, which contained some beautiful expressions of the child's deep feelings. The teacher was not wrong to draw attention to the errors. But if his priorities had centered on the child's ideas, an expression of his disappointment with the writing would have given the pupil more motivation to seek improvement.