Y1 - should I expect the teacher to correct every single wrong spelling?

[AnonymousBird]

DS has spellings homework every week and generally once he has learnt a word, he gets it right and doesn't seem to forget them. If he gets one wrong in the spelling test at school, it is always corrected (obviously).

However, I saw DS's other work books today and was very pleased to see the amount of free, imaginative writing he is doing in all his subjects. He is using capitals, punctuation and really good sentence and story structure for each piece of work.

However, there were quite a few uncorrected wrongly spelt words. A lot of these words are ones I don't remember seeing in his spelling homework, ones he has just had a stab at writing from the phonetic sounds.

I wonder whether this is "standard" at this stage, ie. just get them writing first and then pay attention to the detail of spelling later - too many corrections on one page may be demoralising for the child to see?

Or, should I be expecting to see every single misspelt word corrected by the teacher when she marks the work, even the ones that haven't been "learnt" yet in spelling homework?

Yes I think that's entirely normal. Too many corrections would be considered demoralising. Getting anything coherent down on paper at this stage is great!

Good - thanks. I thought that might be the case. Didn't want to approach the teacher there and then. She is doing an amazing job and I didn't want to sound all bolshy and anal about a few spellings in a 6 year old who is producing otherwise wonderful work!!!

The teacher whispered to me whilst I was there that she is very impressed with the quality of his work. Personally, I am very happy to let a few spellings slip through, god, he was so proud to show me his work, ticks and gold stars everywhere, I could not have been happier!

It is a recognised teaching strategy, rather than laziness on the part of the teacher.
Work is marked according to where the child is on a spelling continuum. If they are struggling with basic vocabulary, that is what the marking focuses on and supports. With positive recognition of how hard they have tried to spell tricky words phonetically.
If a child is able to spell the basic 100 or 200 consistently, then the marking addresses the next level.
If they are making no spelling errors at all, it's time to increase their vocabulary.

Sounds like he's doing really really well. Agree with runoutofideas.

I'd just want to see a bit of correction, words they've 'learnt'.

You can always get him to do free writing and then correct a few key spellings too if you want. I wouldn't push it too much when he sounds as bright as he does.

I think that the few she has corrected were "learnt" ones or as goblinchild says, ones within their current grasp.

Wow - yes, I think that now he has got to this stage of forming his own writing with relative ease, I will ask him to just to odd bits for me at home, in a relaxed environment and just gently correct ones that I know he should know... but he is doing well, and honestly his face when I came into the classroom to see his work was a picture, he was SO PLEASED to talk me through his work, including his first ever poem (which was actually really good!)

Thanks for the reassurance. My instinct said not to push it re a few spellings, and it sounds like that is the way to go.