Helping Year 1 child with spellings

[zubin]

As the title says really - my ds is in year 1 and seems to be struggling slightly, particularly when it comes to learning spellings, he seems to know them when he at home but is getting them wrong when 'tested' at school, he was taught the jolly phonics system and seems unable to get passed that to learn the spellings of the words not spelt phonetically. Does anyone have any good ways of helping me help him to remember his spellings - if it's fun all the better, it's a chore getting him to settle to it at the moment - thanks in advance

[TeamEdwardTango]

What sort of spellings is he being tested on? I wouldn't test my Yr 1's on spellings, but wouls assess their progress in other ways.
Has he been given the "tricky" words to learn? (me, be, the, they, was etc etc)

[Sam100]

DD2 has just been through year 1. She would get 5 to 10 words a week to "learn". We would start the week by just copying out a few of the words over and over a few times. Then later in the week I would get them to write the word out without looking. Then would try to get them to write a small sentence using the word.

[zubin]

I think they are quite tricky - this week he has my, of, me, you, are - he is spelling of, ov as that is how it sounds to him, I say o-f and he gets it but obviously they say of (ov) at school so he gets it wrong, that tells me I am not helping to actually learn to spell the word if that makes sense

[TeamEdwardTango]

Zubin, they are the "tricky" words listed in Letters and Sounds, the DCFS scheme for teaching phonics and spelling. They are the sort of words that don't make any sense if you spell them phonetically, hence the name "tricky words". They just have to be learnt!
Try putting words on flash cards around the house (by his toothbrush, on the toy box, by the TV etc) and get him to say and spell them as he goes. I'm afraid it's just practice, practice, practice with tricky words.

[zubin]

Thanks both - he is my precious only child and I have to admit I am worrying far more than he is will try both ideas thanks again

[TeamEdwardTango]

And remember, Yr 1 is still very small! They are still babies really...

[jennifersofia]

We used to do a 'look, say, cover, write, check' system and have them do that 3 times for each word.