Spelling Test Guinea Pigs

[Oliversmumsarmy]

Another thread on spelling tests prompted me to ask if this type of education was limited to ds's school or it went nationwide.

Ds when he was in year one would get a list of 10 spellings along the lines of me/meak/beak/leak etc. We would spend time learning the words. Then the spelling test would be to write the sentence

"The brown dog walked slowly in the park today. "

Ds was so confused. Only those who were doing English as a foreign language got the spellings me/meak/beak/leak. Ds would regularly get 0 and it really put him off doing the spelling homework. I got really annoyed when I was called in to tell me that my son was failing and he was not learning his spellings.

Did anyone else have this type of spelling test? Ds is now 13. Or was it just that year/school/class being used as guinea pigs in some educationalists experiment. Ds has struggled with reading and writing ever since. He went from a boy who wanted to learn to one who was totally disengaged with school in 1 term.

I have a 13 year old and a year 1 child. Neither of them have spelling tests. Ds did not have spelling tests until juniors. He did badly in spelling tests because of hearing problems.

I don't think you can blame what happened in year 1 seven years ago with your son being disengaged with school in year 8. Ds likes school inspiite of not being great at spelling.

Are you sure the ten words were spellings they look more like phonics, which would be considered very good practice.

The sentence also looks like phonics dictation rather than a spelling test ... Again good practice.

You need to look elsewhere for your child's difficulties.

I've had DC in primary school since the very early 00s, with spelling lists from year 1. Their lists were like the ones your DS gets, with a list of ten words with related sounds.

And I didn't see that as unusual, so I think I must have done similar when I was at school in 60s/70s (I can't remember exactly). Which is a long way of saying that I don't think your DS is a guinea pig. Especially as I think it's all based on Schoenell (1950s or earlier) isn't it?

Im sure my DCs (now 15 and 17) used to have to write spellings as part of a sentence when they were at primary school. I remember a teacher explaining that otherwise the children would learn them as individual words but still spell them incorrectly when used. We were encouraged to practice them at home in a sentence. It also ensured they knew the correct usage of similar words, there or their, bear or bare etc.

But the words he learnt bore no resemblance to the words in the spelling test. If it is all about good practice then why did this not apply to every pupil in the class.

I would suggest the words he learnt weren't for a spelling test and the dictated sentences used sounds taught to everyone in class.

Is 'meak' a word?

It's a long handled brush, hook or scythe

Thankyou, it's not in my dictionary (Chambers) which goes straight from 'meagre' to 'meal'.

Definitely not a high frequency word and not one I'd see as useful

So no one recognises this sort of weekly test.

Maths was another strange learning experience. It became so complicated that all the parents were invited to have a Maths lesson to explain the new way addition and subtraction was being taught. Even the teacher got mixed up when trying to explain it to us. The following year things went back to a more normal way of adding up and taking away and spelling tests.

Several of the other mums did feel we were not sending our children to school but into some strange educational laboratory.

This was year 1 and when they got into year 2 all the children were expected to be able to read, write and do Maths etc I would say that about 1/2 the class were left behind.

Essexmum my dd did that type of spelling test type practice. I can understand that type of spelling test.

Yes Oliversmumsarmy it's very common to use dictated sentences in class while sending home phonic lists to practise. Two separate things.

From what you are saying it sounds very much as if the school were following that National Numeracy framework

My son had similar dictation in year 1 and has a good attitude towards school in year 8 inspiite of doing badly in such tests. I feel it's unfair to blame year 1 tests for problems in year 8.

Ds's school in year 2 expected everyone to be able to read, write etc if they couldn't they were left behind. A group of them would just sit in lessons looking at the board trying to guess what was written on it.
It caused so much bad feeling between the 2 groups as 1 group was being praised for their work whilst the rest were just looked on with exasperation. I tried my very best to help him but it has taken gargantuan efforts to get him where he is today. We had to go back to basics. Other parents hired tutors.

It sounds as if your son has received a poor education but it has nothing to do with guinea pig spelling tests.

Any child unable to read and write needs to be supported not ignored and left to flounder.

This sounds normal to me...

TBH if he really became completely disengaged with reading etc and still is I don't think you can blame it on that. Did you raise this with his teacher at the time?

ACtually, an experience like that, that early on, can block a child's engagement with the learning process. It's about affecting confidence and belief in their ability to do it - if they are consistently shown that they can't do it, for whatever reason, and this isn't addressed, then they come to believe that they can't do it, and that affects future progress.