Depending on where you live, I would imagine that standards of literacy vary from region to region like anywhere else. Along with this are aspects of status i.e. poverty which can affect ones level of literacy. Not being from the country in which you live, as an outside observer it would seem that the English language used undergoes frequent change, having arisen out of a melting pot of cultures that first settled in your country before it became a nation. All of this influences are surely to impact in some way on the level of literacy of your fifth graders.

Literacy itself does not begin in the schools, but in the homes.

Spelling Bee is a spelling competition that originated in the U.S. (1925) as a competitive way to improve spelling standards of English words. Accents and the pronounciation of English words differ from how the words are spelt. If the pronounciation of words usually spoken differ from how the words are actually spelt, against a backdrop of not minimal reading activity in the home, then this is bound to affect the child's reading potential. How many children read for fun, and have stories read to them, or participate in family activities that involve writing messages, shopping lists. How many parents leave their child's learning up to the schools? One mother had this to say:

"My son is in 5th grade and being served under the LD label in the public school system. His spelling is horrid. He makes many spelling errors ( he can spell the same word three times on one page and it is spelled three different ways) , punctuation errors, and cannot format a paper, segment paragraphs, etc... His teachers have simply been ignoring his writing problems for several years. His spelling hasn't even been corrected, so he thinks his spelling is correct".

When a child begins to attend school, they are one among a class of maybe 25 if they are lucky, which suits factory teaching (standardized teaching of standardized material to a group of standard type children), but this does not suit a child, who if left unattended to, can fall through the standardized learning net. How many young people leave school not being able to read or write? American educationalist, Linda Gibson observed:

"In recent years, the difficulties of dealing with children who come to school lacking consistent and pleasureable experiences with books and other print materials have been compaunded by pressures to implement formal teaching methods – use of workbooks and skill-drill activities – at earlier and earlier ages. I have heard nursery and kindergarten teachers insist that they don't have the time to read books to their groups because of all the other materials they must cover to prepare their students for reading programs in the coming years!"   

So with the system of schooling in some public schools placing pressure on the teachers to perform in a manner that is not conducive to learning, and the child being faced with learning form and not learning function, unless the child comes from a learning culture within the home, and/or a classroom where learning is a process that involves the child, it is no surprising that your fifth graders spell words the way they pronounce them. Linda Gibson refers to this anomaly as "transitional spelling", as the children get used to seeing words in print, and she finds that all early grades undergo this process. She attributes the widespread problem to:

1. "Lack of quantity and quality of reading"
2. "Spelling programs that overemphasize "sounding-out" or letter-name spelling strategies, which if used exclusively, will lead youngsters astray".

Private education in general, has one common ground on which to stand with homeschooling, and that is that there is more likelihood that a child's individual needs will be adressed. I emphasize in general because both private education and homeschooling can be subject to the same system of schooling, i.e. one that does not include the child in the learning process and treats the child like an empty vessel to be filled with information. Al hamdu lillah, as it would seem that you have enjoyed your private education and your homeschooling, but a word of warning, maintaint he reading habit of books that are of a good standard of English which you enjoy, because it is this that will help you to maintain and improve your own English. 

For your further guidance, please try the following links: