LONDON Children's spelling in England is getting worse, if the national tests for 11 year olds are anything to go by, according to the BBC news online Saturday.

An analysis of last year's national curriculum tests by the qualifications and curriculum authority (QCA), has just been published.

It found that most of the children who reached the writing standard expected for their age had trouble with half of the 20 words in the spelling test.

Problem words were: Serious, surprise, nastiest, designed, regardless, attempts and individual - and especially, technique.

Children's spelling in their writing was also analyzed and, on average, they made between seven and eight spelling errors in 100 words.

At the level expected of 11 year olds, spelling accuracy was 91%. last year it was 95%.

"In their own writing of course children are likely to choose words with which they are more confident," the authors note.

Typical errors were: Proberly (probably), stoped (stopped), determind (determined), cuirious (curious), franticly (frantically), puting (putting), travaling (travelling), statchue (statue), relized (realized).

Endings in general, including common ones such as -ed, still caused problems.

And in general, achievement in writing still lags behind reading, the report says, highlighting two issues: Insecure use of full stops and capital letters.

"As children learn to write more complex sentences they should be taught to consider explicitly where sense and sentences end," the experts say.

In narrative writing, children relied too much on a simple chronological organization - with paragraphs starting "then...", "the next day..." or "after...".

Often, endings were not very effective, suggesting a lack of structure.

It is suggested children are taught to spend more time thinking about where their stories are going to end up.