Key stage 1 spellings

[JMT]

I'm concerned that my daughter's school is taking the softly, softly approach to teaching too far. Do your children learn spellings in years 1 and 2? Do they have spelling tests? If so, please let me know what they are given and which school they go to.

Thanks

[EDmummy]

I understand that views on spelling in KS1 changed over the last few years (different for my 11 year old than my now 7 year old) but you really should have a chat to the teacher as they will be able to tell you more about the approach they are adopting.

I'd be interested in hearing from parents from other schools. What school does your daughter go to? Mine is at Heber.

[JMT]

Thanks for your response. It's Edmund Waller, the other side of Nunhead.

[telemum]

My dd, at Dalmain in Se23 (Yr1) does about eight spellings a week. If she doesn't get them all right we get them back with a note (!). All I can gather from her is that they 'hop' up a chart on the wall as they learn more sets of spellings and that there are a hundred to know by the end of Yr1. We were given the full list at parents evening and told to go back over them if she seemed shaky on ones she had already done.

Apart from the spelling tests though it appears to be phonics all the way - leastways they seem happy that she still spells 'because' 'bkos'!

[prdarling]

We had 13 spellings a week in Yesr 1. The first ever list contained the word frightened, which I thought was a bit much!

Now in Year 2 my son has 10 spellings a week usually based around a topic, such as different plural rules, so this week we have recipes, loaves, knives, fairies etc.

Spellings are streamed into 3 levels so not all of the kids have the same ones, they are done according to ability.

We are at Fairlawn

[Coach Beth]

My son goes to Goose Green Primary School. We had about 10 spellings a week in year 1 and my son had to write them out 3 times and then use them in a sentence too which at the time I thought was abit much! In year 2, we were given words weekly to practice and then also we were given a big list of the 200 words that they should know by end of year two and encouraged to review ones he was shaky on. Now in Year Three, spelling homework is related to topics they are learning in other areas like science or maths. So this week, we had words related to the environment and included deforestation, carbon dioxide and recycle. As others have mentioned, school uses differentiation strategies (see this definition of differentiation http://www.geoffpetty.com/differentiation.html) to ensure children of different abilities get homework to suit their needs.

* edited to correct a mispelling!

[gwod]

Not so much about tests per se, but we have been give this list of words which I have found very useful with all of my kids, First 16 words in list make up 25% of all words in children?s books; the top 100 make up 50%.

Getting these ones down at an early stage really helps with their writing. Interestingly they are nearly all words which would be hard to work out phonetically so just need to get learned parrot fashion.

My Yr 1 daughter gets 8 spellings a week - 6 quite easy and on a topic (plurals, endings or something) and 2 challenge words trickier but useful, (beautiful, frightening that sort of thing)

the

and

a

to

said

in

he

I

of

it

was

you

they

on

she

is

for

at

his

but

that

with

all

we

can

are

up

had

my

her

what

there

out

this

have

went

be

like

some

so

not

then

were

go

little

as

no

mum

one

them

do

me

down

dad

big

when

it?s

see

looked

very

look

don?t

come

will

into

back

from

children

him

Mr

get

just

now

came

oh

about

got

their

people

your

put

could

house

old

too

by

day

made

time

I?m

if

help

Mrs

called

here

off

asked

saw

make

an

[telemum]

gwod, that looks like the same list...though they did some of them in Reception (they were called 'key words' but they still had to be able to write them so I'm not really sure what the difference was)

[gwod]

Yes, we got them in reception too. I just thought it was really useful to know they make up half of the words in kids books and are therefore pretty handy for anyone who wants more input into their childs spellings. Made for a long post though!

[Pickle]

We get a list of words every week (yr 1 at Goodrich), broken into three levels. So this week,

Level 1 - no, go

Level 2 - when, out, she

level 3 - what, because (that's a tricky one!)

My son has written them out a few times, I've worked on the tricky ones with him, and he has used them in a sentence which he also wrote down.

I absolutely love the structured nature of the homework he is given, 15 minutes a day of really focussed learning. The geek in me has resurfaced, I loved doing homework when I was a kid so am glad my son enjoys it!

I try to gently correct his spellings when he does things at home. He loves making books, often about "soop hiros" and beginning with "wuns apona time". Got to love phonics!

[laurac]

My daughter had that list last year in reception but that was just word recognition for reading, nothing to do with spelling. So far this year she hasn't mentioned that they are doing any spelling at all and they don't have homework full stop. She is at Dulwich Village Infants.

[telemum]

Fifteen minutes a day of homework would be the death of all of us, I think - we have enough problems with the daily reading book, weekly spellings and weekly homework....(frequently like pulling teeth for my summerborn daughter!)

Interesting that the schools all do it so differently

[JessM]

My son is at Alleyn's. their spellings are around the "sound of the week" and they either get 6, 8, 10 or 12 depending on what group they're in (as far as I can tell!)

So the other week they did "ow" and the words were show, flow, blow, know, follow etc

I think we've had "ee," "ay," "oy" and "igh" as well.

[minder]

Not heard of these ones JessM.

Would be interesting to know how the kids get on.

[minder]

gwod your list sounds just about right - but the words beautiful and frightening take a lot longer!

[gwod]

Yes I like the balance of stuff you should know - and stuff to stretch towards...

[sandrah]

I used to teach at Edmund Waller (year 1) and we didn't send spellings home when I was there although we did send homework which was phonics based. Each school is very different. I now teach in a school that also doesn't send spellings home until Year 2 but instead we send home phonics boxes each week that supports the letters and sounds phonic program that we teach. Hope this helps.