Lots of spellings in Y1!?

[gabid]

Yesterday DS in Y1 came home with the second lot of about 40 words he has to learn to write, most of them are still easy but some are longer, e.g. 'children'.

The 'read, cover, write, check' method seems a boring way to learn to spell at that age. The first lot he did very quickly, but as words get more difficult I think he will get fed up with it. Besides, he is Y1 and just started reading (which he does well) and writing. It seems too much too soon.

What do other schools do? Any other ideas to learn to write his words, e.g. websites?

Yes, I went to school in Germany and was almost 7 when I started, there were no toys in school, but still I was ready for sitting down and learning to read and write. DS is bi-lingual too, he is doing fine but is getting resistant to doing spellings in any shape or form, I feel he is too young to sit down and do spellings every day, and reading and other homework - its too much. Unfortunately, I have to say that I want him to do it as I don't want him to feel that he is not as clever as others in school. I must say though I have met a lot of parents of younger children in Y1 who feel that their children are not ready for all this work.

dilbertina Thu 28-Oct-10 08:39:30
Whilst they may not have been teaching reading and writing they were certainly being taught some building blocks for it.

which is exactly what is happening in good reception classes

bravo mrz and this is what is happening in ours.

I am very very pleased with how it has worked for my dd.....she has become a confident, happy learner who wants to do more work and sees it all as fun.

:)

We had Shrimp,throw,shrink,strum,throat,string last week my daughter is in yr1, she had to learn the spellings and put them in a sentance.Not much fun!
Went to parents eve last week and saw lots of her writing, what amazed me was the school doesn't correct her spelling when she completes her work?
Hmmm, we have a strange education system!

I think they are just encouraging to express themselves in writing - correcting every word would demotivate them and put them off writing at all. As they keep reading and writing correct spelling will emerge.

10 words per wk. DS can manage this number comfortably.

My DD in Yr1 hasn't had any spellings and we haven't really had any new words to learn so far. :(

If he's a physical learner then using magnetic letters would be good.

Yes, we tried magnetic letters and DS seems to like them. Still, he is not keen on the whole idea of spellings and finding the second lot of 40 words this 1/2 term a bit of a drag.

I have found a phonics website DS seems to like so far:
www.beenleigss.eq.edu.au hope that works. We have practiced the 'igh' sound for night, right etc. - seemed to help him with his spellings.

Ah, the link sends you to the homepage, you have to select phonics.