to think children should be taught to read and to form letters before being given spellings tests?

[26minutes]

Ds2 who has just started yr1 now has weekly spellings tests. I think it's crazy enough as it is that a 5 year old is having to do this, I don't remember spellings tests until I was in the equivalent of year 4. But to make matters worse he cannot read, so therefore it makes it more difficult to learn to spell words. The phonics that schools now teach are stopping him from being able to learn to read as he tries to 'sound out' every word that is put in front of him. Would it not be a good idea to teach children to read properly first?

On top of that, he hasn't yet been taught to form letters. So for instance a and e he does in a really odd way, he doesn't seem to be able to 'unlearn' the way he does it.

Now I'm not expecting the school to do everything with him, I understand that that is part of my role as a parent as well, and I do do a lot with him. I can't teach him to read though as I have no idea how to unteach phonics. During the summer holidays I started teaching him words the 'old fashioned' way, i.e. showing them to him and teaching them to him. He was learning about 5 words at a time and learning them after only seeing them twice, words he had learnt at the start of the holidays he still knew 7 weeks later when he went back to school. Now though that he's having phonics drummed back into him he looks at them, tries to sound them out and gets confused and stressed so I've stopped. In year R he had only learnt 40 out of 100 words that they are supposed to know by the end of yrR, although many of them he didn't really know imo. I've sat with him trying to help him with form letters but any breakthrough I do seem to have is wiped away the next day after school.

The school say he is well ahead of where he would be expected to be - his work is what would be planned for the end of yr1, so he is 2 terms 'ahead' but I am struggling to understand why 1. spellings tests are a good idea for a 5 year old and 2. why they are not taught to read and write before they are taught to spell.

[festi]

does he get flash cards sents home? practacing these every day or displaying them on the wall may help.

for instance.

"igh" practice the I sound in night and ow practice the "aw" cow sound or "ai" a sound in rain etc.

He is still young enough to require an adequate amount of time to grasp this, I would not be overly concerned about his age etc. however I do think you may benifit from some guidance from the teacher on this.

My dd some times needs reminding to not sound out, look at the letters and blend the sounds, she will stop think and remember if not I will remind her, remeber the igh makes I.


my dd does seem to make the individual sound out loude and say i g h makes I or w a s makes was. or a i makes A. the e tuns the a in to A. etc. she talks her self through it in this way and if she forgets her adopt her explination to remind her.

[festi]

here i just searched my dds Mnemonic flash cards that are sent home from school, looks like you can print them off from here for free.

[26minutes]

Yes he was getting flashcard type things home in yrR. They'd send 10 home, then once they'd learnt them they'd send home the next 10. They had 10 sets of 10 that they expected the children to have completed by the end of yrR, he only had 4 sets send home. The last set were:

for
then
now
will
with
that
this
see
into
them

These as you can imagine caused a huge problem as he will sound each individual letter out, he had these for about 2 terms and was never moved up or anything. I approached the teachers and told them about my concerns that he was struggling finding it impossible to understand that th need to be read together. I would sit down and try to explain this to him, but he would do it for one word and then for the next go straight back to reading them seperately. The teachers just said 'oh he'll get it soon' or something along those lines. In all honesty I got to the point where I was just desperate for yr R to be over and stopped bothering the teachers as they clearly weren't interested.

The list of words that they sent home in his reading book this week that he needs to learn to get onto the next level are now written out and on the kitchen noticeboard, I try to be as relaxed as possible about getting him to do them as I really don't want to stress him out about it. I tried the magic e technique with like and he seemed to get it, but not so sure this morning when we tried them. He looks at them and looks defeated before he even starts. He's quite competitive by nature and they display what level of 'keywords' they are on in the classroom and it was really upsetting him last year seeing all the other names being moved up the board and his staying where it was (this is another reason I am surprised they say that he is ahead of where he 'should' be).

Some of the spellings he had were words like all, call, ball....He can read all fine, but looked totally lost when it came to ball. I showed him the pattern that they all ended in 'all' and all he had to do was add the first sound on to the front, but he would look all confused and break it down into the 4 seperate sounds, b-a-l-l. So I got him to cover over the b, say 'all' then move his finger and say it with the b at the front. He seems to be getting it that way so I'm going to try this method with other words. Fingers crossed.

It's not so much that I'm desperate for him to read as he is only 5 still, it's more that I want him to be able to relax about things and the phonics and learing to read is frustrating him so much that I feel that if he can master it then he can relax about it all a bit more. Maybe he's going to be one that worries about it all the time and once this is out of the way then it'll be something else for him to stress about, I don't know, hopefully not.

[bumbleymummy]

26 - do you read storybooks together? When DS1 was 2 there were certain books that he just loved and we read over and over again and he knew the story off by heart. This meant that I could start reading a line and then point to certain words so he could fill in the gaps iykwim. I think this really gave him a good foundation for reading and helped him pick it up really easily. Of course all children are different but your DS's mind may work in a similar way to my DS's so I just thought I would suggest it!

I think it's important for reading to be fun and interesting so make sure you still read books together that he likes and not just the 'learning to read' type books. Rhyming books are great because they have rhythm and kind of give you a hint about pronunciation iykwim. Dr Seuss books are great, some Julia Donaldon books eg. The Gruffalo and Room on the Broom and Lynley Dodd - slinky Malinky and Hairy McClary books.

Also, YouTube is great for little phonics songs so maybe letting him watch them would help without really putting pressure on him?

[bumbleymummy]

Too many 'greats' - sorry! Rushing! :)

[GrownUpNow]

Sounds like your son needs extra support to grasp the learning he isn't understanding, rather than spelling tests being unreasonable for a five year old. There will be different ability levels through the class. I like that it's an opportunity to practice handwriting and let DS copy the words over and over, with maybe a practice test at home if he wants, no stress at all... at this age I would speak to the school about him struggling then absolutely focus on making any learning at home he is doing fun and no pressure at all... it's counter productive, he'll get there and needs to learn to enjoy learning at this age IMO.

[begonyabampot]

my yr 1 is crap at writing but excellent at reading and spelling so he gets a chance to shine at what he is good at while still working on his writing. They all reach these milestones in their own time and different order so I have no problem with them spelling at this age.

[MrsHeffley]

As the mother of a bright,left hander with appalling handwriting I disagree with the op.

If you waited for some kids to form all letters correctly they'd be way behind on spelling.

[26minutes]

It's good to have different views, I can see from what people have said that the repetition of practising the spellings will help him form the words and maybe if I look at it as learning to read in reverse. He can't look at a word and know it, but he can hear a word and know how to spell it, so yes maybe thinking of it as learning to read 'backwards' would help me see it as a good thing.

I'm still not thrilled about children so young having the pressure of spellings tests, but seems it's the norm nowadays, just need to find a way of him relaxing about it. I know it's not the be all and end all if he doesn't get them all right, but try telling that to him!

bumbley, yes we do read together, we go to the library regularly and he chooses his own books. He can remember a story from the very 1st time it's read to him word for word and will sit there and 'read' it exactly as you have read it. When I was teaching him words by sight in the summer holidays I found that he could recognise words on their own, in different handwriting, in different fonts on a computer screen, but put them onto a page in a book and he couldn't tell you that word when it was pointed out to him.

I've spoken to the teacher today and she's not concerned at all, she doesn't use any 'special' words to tell them that they can't be sounded out, just tells them that and that they need to remember it rather than use their phonics. She said pretty much all of them in this class are struggling just like he is and she's got a lot of work to do with them. SOunds like my worries in yrR were right, and I'm glad he's got this teacher and hopefully she will be as good for him as she was for ds1.

[nickelbabe]

a large reason why left-handers are crap at writing is because of the new methods of teaching left-handers to write, as if they have malformed, alien hands.
I was shocked when I learned of the new methods!
I've always been a good writer, and that's mainly because I was taught in a way that was sympathetic to my left-handeness, not assuming I wanted to start my letters in completely different places, or to form them upside down and backwards.

[26minutes]

That's interesting about left handers as SILs DD1 is left handed and her writing is about the neatest I've seen of a child. It's a lot neater than mine that's for sure. She's now 8 but I remember seeing hers at the end of year 2 and didn't believe it was her. Her school though didn't teach the flicks, so whereas she has lovely neat printed writing, ds1 who is a year older has an unintelligible joined up scrawl wherehe was taught the flicks in and out. But I also remember being shocked at the appalling spelling of the children in her class. Because they were writing everything phonetically so many words were spelt wrongly and I remember DH and I both commenting on how bad the spelling was. I guess I'm a bit of a traditionalist stuck in my ways. I don't see anything wrong with my learning in school - I passed the entrants exam into a private school with a highly assisted place - so don't get why it all had to change.

[begonyabampot]

We have then doing weird joined up letters from reception, not every school does this, know it's for them to progress on to joined up writing but it looks really hard for little ones, i was really surprised when he showed me his letter sheet. I wish all the schools had a uniform approach to this.

[nickelbabe]

i wish schools would just teach them howto form the letters correctly, then teach them joined up later on.
when I was at school, you had to reach a certain level, then you were allowed a fountain pen and that's when you learned joined up writing.

I know a couple of kids who have been taught the joined up method and their handwriting is appalling.