key stage 1 spellings

[festi]

looking for ideas, my dd is y1 in y1/2 class, she has had no spellings from school since november and Im a little annoyed about this I told the teacher 3 times dd can spell the words sent home, the last time I requested spellings begining of december the teacher photo copied a page out of a text book with tricky words, these where the spellings dd had already had sent home.

I have found a list of keystage 1 and 2 spellings that dd is not too sure about so have printed a page of about 30 and ent them into school and asked the teacher to let me know is she thinks they are suitable for dd as she has had no spellings to work on from school since november, more so the teacher is aware of her failings here.

however I have no idea where they sit with what other children are learning in school etc. here are the words, just wanted some ideas as to wether they seem ok as I have no idea......

shy think free

squat Speed Clothes
arch chill liquid
wait squid shade
free drench queen
quit think squint
quiz rich chuck
bench quilt second
quack chicken brake
tide smile hope
broken close make
while square gave
shape use share
made ate take
ride pipe hope
cube morning for
born horse short
high night bright
storm short back

they are currently doing the alternative spellings of vowel phonemes no in y1 at dd's school.

eg ai/ay words

igh/ie words.

this is one area to concenntrrate on.

also, when assessing writing, they look at how the child spells common words, presumably things like house/car/school

then there are the grammer words like their, there, here, her.

you could also do some words that make her writing more interresting. eg shouted, answered/replied,

sorry got to do school run will be back later....

thank you for reply will try to incorporate some those suggestions, she is very quick at getting them after just a few goes, she can already spell many of the grammer words and knows the difference between the there, thier here hear etc.

its jusrt knowing which sound blends to try first. thank you.

ai.. rain/rainbow/snail/
ay.. day/play/say/may
a_e (split digraph/magic e) date/plate/gate/shake

ow cow/how/now/flower/town
ou cloud/cloudy/shout/

y try/why/my/cry
igh night/might/fight
i_e white/smile/smiled/while
ie tie/cried/replied/

were some of the first I tried (ie) last year. we have been concentrating on writing recently, now she has gained some pencil control, but now need to go back and look at spellings again. they have some from school and for the first time, we are having to work at them. it is a boit annoying as they are not always useful spellings.

there is a list of the first 100 words that they are supposed to be able to spell. I am not sure I have a link anymore as the website went pft one day as the government reorganise the curriculum (again!)

you could look at a peice of her writing and see what mistakes she is making and concentrate on them.

Can you look at her work and use the words which the teacher corrects?? I used to do this, it helped for a while. Then I resorted to getting them out of the dictionary.

thanks for thoughts. I dont to get see her work and as far as homework goes the teacher has not corrected any spellings. she just ticks and writes a lovely comment, but never corrects.

I have taught dd to use a dictionary when doing her work as my spelling is beyond poor, i suspect Im dyslexic so I ofen have to think about or google some of the words she asks me to spell. and dd gets impatient with me so I have taught her how to look up words she does not know, so I dont get to see many of her mistakes at home. but I will make a note myself of the words she asks me about. although often if i say how do you think you spell it she works it out and often is correct.

Nooo! How's your daughter going to learn if her spelling isn't corrected?

can you get her to write a story at home and get someone to check the spellings for you and work from there?

lady, it depends on the purpose of the homework. if the homework is geography then the geography part of the homework will be corrected (or not) children are encouraged to have a go at spelling phonetically and are taught rules of spelling and key words seperately. if all spelling are corrected the children lose the confidence to have a go and end up only writing the words they are completely sure they know how to spell. teachers should takle a not of the common mistakes for the class/child/group and teach them in another lesson. they may also correct the spelling that have ben learnt in class too.

i will do that thanks blackeyed she writes all the time at home but tends to be very sectrative with it so i will dig out some of her little strories and lists and see what she is making mistakes on.

I sat with her with a list of hundereds of words I found on the internet (a primart school website) and asked can you spell xyz and she seemed to get beyond what they had as stage 5, but there where lots of words, some pretty obscure that played on the vowel mixing but dd got fed up after a while. I will see how she gets on with these and mix and math some from her own mistakes aswell as what is here and what I found on the net. just wanted reassurance that I am doing the right thing, I did not want to skip an entire sequance that would be important.

it would be far easier if the teacher just gave the next few sets of spellings for her class or the next class, i find it frustrating that the teacher knows and has not had any spellings from dd in her homework book since november, yet has not thought to do anything about this.

Find the sound of the week (which they almost certainly have) and stretch sideways - get dd to find new words with that sound; words she has never heard of with that sound; spot the sound in her reading books; write sentences using that sound.

I've got Y2 children with spelling ages of 11+ and try to get them to enhance their vocab, whilst reinforcing spelling rules.

mumblesmum DD's year 2 teacher did this with her. Also good for dictionary/thesaurus work.

I always understood 'spelling tests' a waste of time and better just to learn words in context eg a sentence. My ds [when in year 1] always got full marks for spelling tests and then would spell the word wrong in context. Just good memory for tests. School stopped spelling tests and do stuff in class instead.

We only give them weekly spellings to keep the more vociferous mummies and daddies happy, and figure that it can't do any harm! One of those things not worth arguing about!
With phonics teaching happening daily in KS1, with continuous reinforcement of sounds, etc, spelling lists shouldn't be necessary.

My dd is the same. She doesn't get spelling. Instead she is asked to get a dictionary and find new words.

festi what mumblesmum said; if your child can spell, and use correct spelling on a day-to-day-basis, AND use a dictionary and thesaurus, then why on God's earth do you need school spelling lists?? It can become a bit like the book band fight - "Which spelling group is your DC in?" - bragging rights for the parents of children in group 1, or A, or whatever, and feigned sympathy for those in group 3, or C.

I think you are worrying about nothing.

To be frank, school spelling lists are a waste of time if your child can spell.

I can honestly say that because mine were early readers, they just picked up spellings from books. They've never had a school spelling list they've had to learn. In fact they are 12,10 and 8, and none of them have ever learned their spellings homework. The only child that has ever bothered to do it at all was dd1, and that was because at the time they had dreadful time wasting worksheets where you had the write in every single blardy balloon the clown was holding and all that nonsense.

If your child can spell, and never gets any wrong in the tests, why are you bothering to waste your time and hers?

In fact, on yr 1, ds would ask the teachers to put specific words on his list, just because. So for a while we had bizarre stuff like fluorescent etc. it was just for his own amusement really, as words had come up in class and he thought they were cool. He still didn't 'learn' them, they just tested him on them at the end of the week. He got bored with it fairly quickly. It's making work for work's sake, really. Let her play instead.