What is your technique re. prep for spelling tests

[Anenome]

I just wondered if anyone had any good methods. My DD is in year 2 and has 12 words a week. I have found she does best if I ask her verbally to spell words out loud...we do about 6 at a time. Then the next day I ask her to write them down as though we were sitting a test...the ones which she get wrong I later ask her to verbally spell again...then to write them.

Is there some faster way? She does well but I just thought I would see what others did?

Not sure my method is to be recommended as it was going through them very quickly on Friday morning having forgotten about them all week .

Worked for DS this week but I am not sure it would every week.

Have seen someone link to this where you can put in your own words

ds reads through them, then says their sounds, then says their letters, then does look cover write, then does random spot spellings whilst walking to school and then writes then in a spelling style test the day before. By which time he is likely only to get the words wrong because his hand writing is so bad. yr1 about the same no words per week.

He gets tested monday or tuesday. we read and up to cover look write on wednesday, and do odd bits randomly when he is in bath walking etc til sat. on sunday he does the practice testing with enough time to practice the feel of writing the word.

I am dyslexic so spent hours each work trying to learn the spellings and found for me that random rather then sit and think was best for the learning part and then test practice just prior when i could verbally spell it. It is a very long winded process though, but he can spell every word each week. even if the teacher cant read his handwriting. we use spelling to practice that

Wow...that link looks good...my DD loves working on computers so that might give me a break help her!

Thanks for that!

Yes OuchPassVodka, my DD likes to say them outloud while on the swing or walking to school...never thouht of look cover write...but DD is very impatient and quite slow at writing. May give it a shot though just to mix it up!

I write them on a piece of paper and stick it up in her room so DD can see them regularly. Then throughout the week randomly ask the odd word in the car/bath etc
Then test her on them all verbally or written the day before the test at school.

Tbh Anenome Ds does the look, cover, write thing himself. I just bought him a cheap shiney bribe new note book to write them in

He is a rare breed of very motivated child but then again he is in a yr1/2 split class and there are yr2 expectations for the whole class in terms of behaviour.

Just discovered this by accident (for my DD, aged 7, middle to low in her class ranking).

We've got a white board in my office at home. She's always loved drawing and writing on it. Used it to practice this week's spellings and for reasons best known to herself, she cracked them really quickly!

Also, she loves to play a game when we cuddle on the sofa or in my bed together - write letters on her back and she has to guess which letters you've 'written'. With short words, the same technique works. So on this weekend's spelling list, we had:-

rice, nice, ice, hike and kite (plus some longer ones but they were not so successful on 'back-writing).

Look-cover-write=check

My son is in year 1. He does not like to learn spellings. Usual method is me trying to persuade him to look - cover - write - check while he whinges and procrastinates. This does not bode well for the next 13 years of homework.

Computer thing looks worth a try though, he likes computers.

We write them out to test which ones she already knows, the ones she gets wrong she writes out 3 times - takes about 5 mins.

Tbh we have yet to have any really challenging spellings(she is now in Yr3)...dd just seems to be able to easily remember the word for the test but not necessarily the following week in her writing.

NoahAndTheWhale we tried the online look-cover-write thing and she loved it....got them all right too! So pleased with that.

Do a pre test ie. read the words aloud and get your DC to write them down. Focus on the words that are wrong by using the look, cover, write, check method. Test again on a Thursday night.

I am a teacher and I do provide and mark a lot of spelling tests.

I hesitate to say this but in my experience the children who 'verbally' spell often (possibly even usually) don't spell as well as those who ONLY do cover write check. Even though they can verbally spell a word it doesn't seem to translate into correctly spelling a word when it is written down.

As spelling is actually a 'written down' thing I suppose, my advice to parents has always been cover write check and cut out the verbal spelling - but, naturally, only if children are having problems.

Thinking about it now - I wonder if it is because spelling is a written thing and perhaps the verbal translation does, in some way, confuse the issue.

This is just my experience of the matter - you must decide on the way that is best for all of you.

How about using crayons bath crayons to write them whlst in the bath?

I used to save the list on my mobile phone so we could practice them on the way to school or if we had time to waste in the car.