Spelling bee sting

I’M NOT sure if S Beck (Letters, 26 January) was implying that spelling bees encourage children to learn, but in my experience this is not so.

In Primary 7, we had a dictation test every week. No matter how hard I worked, each Friday I got zero out of 20 and was then belted for having performed so badly. No attempt was made to find out why a hard-working and fairly intelligent child couldn’t write a passage without at least 20 mistakes. Nowadays I’d be recognised as being “mildly dyslexic” and given help.

Let’s not go anywhere near the “good old days”. I eventually became a teacher in the hope that I could stop other children going through what I had.

MORAG O’DEA

Crewe Terrace

Edinburgh