Unreasonable spellings for year 3?

[Ashers40]

Out of interest what do you think?

[spanieleyes]

Ridiculous!

[LadyLannister]

Yes they definitely seem unreasonable for year 3. I have twins in year 3 and they don't get spellings like this. I would think that most year 3 children would have no idea what those words mean, would not be using them in their written work therefore it seems pointless getting them to spell them.

[noblegiraffe]

A 7 year old being asked to find out the meaning of dystopia or didactic and use them in their writing?

Is this a super-advanced class or have they been getting normal spellings up till now?

[t1mum]

Pretty tough in terms of understanding the words as the meanings of some of them are too complex for a child that age to get imho. Actually learning to spell them by rote might be doable for the more able.

I'd be more worried that they have to make a poster showing their meaning. WTF! My mind is boggling as to how to illustrate didactic or dystopia.

[user789653241]

My ds had catastrophe for YR1 spelling... that was ridiculous. I never even heard of didactic and dilapidated.(I'm foreign.)
Do the teacher expect yr3 children to use those words? My ds is yr3, and may pass the spelling test, but will forget completely next week. No point of learning those words!

[lljkk]

Not unreasonable for top set to do 7/10 of that list. The words are ok for top set, but it's too many words for any set. I'm on my 4th yr3 kid at a mediocre school... all good spellers, though should not mention DD could have spelled those in yr1.

[BathshebaDarkstone]

My phone says Mumsnet says the image can't be loaded.

What are the words?

[Ashers40]

I seriously think the teacher was having a good laugh. Usually he's great though and the spellings are more reasonable.

[user789653241]

But lljkk, even you can spell the word, there is no point of learning it unless you can actually understand the meaning and use it in writing?
Sure, my ds will get 10/10 for spelling, but will not be able to actually use those words in writing.

[Feenie]

It's unreasonable to ask for ten random words to be learnt anyway, and some of the words on that list are ludicrous.

[Ashers40]

Bathsheba - didactic, dystopian, catastrophic, distinguished...

[noblegiraffe]

As a maths teacher I'd far rather they learned to spell 'tricky' words like parallelogram or symmetry because they'd be far more useful than didactic, yet many kids get them wrong (or even 'angle').

[lljkk]

Some kids won't understand the word delicious. What's the difference between looking that up & looking up dystopia? The point of school is to extend their horizons & knowledge base. Fine to have some words in there they don't know (before now, and may not remember... so what?). Ours only have to write 4 sentences, otherwise they are learning the rules of how to spell the words. These words have some consistent patterns.

Bathsheba: the words are delicious, dilapidated, dystopia, utopia, deliberate, catastrophic, didactic, disorganised, distinguished, courageous.

[ChalkHearts]

This list shows VERY little thought from the teacher.

It's not the fact they are hard - which they are. It's the fact some of them are so far outside a Y3s vocabulary.

(What does didactic mean?)

I bet the teacher will say they had no choice. They were told to use that list. And that's what annoys me. Teachers turning off their brain to do what they're told.

There is just no circumstances which this would be appropriate homework for a Y3 class / child.

[spanieleyes]

I am all for extending vocabulary but there are THOUSANDS of words I would select before introducing dystopia, utopia and didactic!

[Ashers40]

Spaniel - exactly

[ChalkHearts]

Unless hunger games is the class book :) (for dystopia)

[ChalkHearts]

Or 1984

[negrilbaby]

We recently got sent home the New Curriculum Spelling list for yr 3 and 4 in DS's school - none of the OP's spellings were on the list.

[JeffreySadsacIsUnwell]

I don't think they're unreasonable . My DD had 'delicious' and 'deliberate' last year, she's had 'courageous' and 'catastrophic' this year; she's Y2. She regularly uses and correctly spells 'deliberate' and 'organised' (as when describing a solution to a problem: 'I organised the blocks in groups of five'); 'disorganised' is in her vocabulary though I don't know if she uses it in writing. She used the word 'utopia' to describe her imagined land (current topic: fairytales), which presumably she's heard in class.

DD definitely knows the word 'didactic', she told me not to be so didactic last week when I insisted she tidied her room before getting out more toys! I know for a fact that teachers have used 'didactic' when setting the Y2 children the task of writing an instructional/informative account of something.

I honestly don't think these words are outside a Y3’s consciousness, and many of them would be everyday words for certain lessons/topics; I just wouldn't expect them all to be used in the same piece of writing and think that perhaps it's because you see them all together that they appear OTT?

[Feenie]

You are definitely living in some kind of utopia, Jeffrey.

[MsMarple]

I sometimes struggle to see the point of random spelling words, but if they are being encouraged to find the meanings and extend their vocabulary then surely that is a good thing? Even if they don't use utopia in everyday conversation it can't hurt to know what it means.

In terms of difficulty they seem of a similar level to the ones my Year 3 DS brings home every week. Often they are linked to current learning topics, so they do know what the words mean to start with.

[Feenie]

Sending home random spellings is not the same as teaching spelling. Research shows that it does not improve spelling.

[ChalkHearts]

Feenie, you've been reading different research to me.

It doesn't matter whether you send home random spelling words or words grouped by a spelling pattern. The problem is testing them on a Friday. If you test the list you sent home every Friday for 4 weeks then you have a very high chance of retaining the spellings.

Think how it works when teaching French. If you just test a vocabulary list once at the end of the week you won't retain the words either.

However I totally agree that teaching spelling is different. A spelling lesson should not be around a random list of words.

But sending a list home round the spelling lesson is generally pointless. I.e if you send home a list of kn words, then the child doesn't have to remember the words at all. All they need to remember is for this test, this week, use kn instead of n

So actually it is best to send home words which aren't linked by a spelling pattern, or sound. But you need to study them / test them for far longer than a week.

[icklekid]

Here are new national curriculum spelling lists incase it is helpful <a class="break-all" href="https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/239784/English_Appendix_1_-_Spelling.pdf&ved=0ahUKEwiMtsXd0JnLAhXRZpoKHfDyAKoQFggiMAA&usg=AFQjCNEpXMW8CrL_5v0weIEH1EZBhCK-Uw&sig2=qyCuiISyIP053ii0mOP12Q" rel="nofollow noindex" target="_blank">pdf