Year one homework advice from parents and teachers please

[madmum04]

I'm unsure on whether im doing right or wrong, i did mention it at parents evening in october but didnt really get an answer other than the teacher said he was pleased to actually see her having done some work as they struggle so much to get her to work in class.

Now this weekend she had to write some sentences for her homework, she told me what she was going to write and I told her if it sounded ok, I then let her write her sentence without telling her what the spelling was, I let her sound out and write the word as she thinks it is but im not sure if thats right or I should be correcting her spelling for her? I usually write under what she has written so the teacher can read it.

I did remind her to leave her spaces between words which she forgot all the way through but im just unsure of what i should be doing.

What do you do with your children? Or teachers out there what do you expect from us as parents? Should we be telling them how to spell each word or allowing them to try?

Have to add my daughter is behind in her work but she still gives it a good go

You shouldn't be correcting their spelling at this age.

They should be spelling words as best as they can.

Thanks Indigo, the last two homeworks ive let her spell as she sounds but wasnt sure if it was the correct way

To be honest, I think homework at this age is more for the parents to see what their kids can do/ their weak areas/ ideas of things to do at home etc. The teacher will have had plenty of chance to see what your dd is capable of in the school environment so anyone doing homework for their kids won't be 'surprising' the teacher with the high quality of work! My Y1 ds1 sounds a bit like your dd, a bit behind and most words don't make a lot of sense (has a tendency to leave out all the vowels), but he enjoys writing lots at home, which is great. With homework, I let him get to the point where he feels challenged but not overwhelmed. For example he would spell words like 'and', 'said', 'well', 'she' etc. but if he wanted to write 'disappointed' I would help him, "What does it begin with? What comes next?" and then tell him the 'point' bit in the middle, leaving hin to do 'ed' etc. I do want him to learn HOW to spell and time at home is a chance he gets 1:1 with an adult helping, explaining the rules of spelling. At school he would likely have to spell it himself and just have a good guess, which is another way to learn but I want to maximise that 1:1 time.

(PS. I'm only a parent, not a teacher, in case you didn't guess!)

Invest in a first dictionary and start to teach how to use that? I picked up a disney one with pictures & a sentence for each word in one of those bargain bookshops.

Thanks for that advice, that makes sense I just didnt want the teachers thinking I wasnt helping her/watching her. We sit together and do the work but her spelling is very poor she can get some of the cvc words but nothing she cant sound out so her writing is generally unreadable this is why I write under her work after she has done it so the teacher can understand and make out what she is trying to say.

Iseenodust great idea we have one of those already ill dig it out for her

No, if she is able to, let her sound out the word. This is called emergent writing and helps them hear the individual sounds in words, so they might write fairy as 'fere' or 'feree'. But that is fine and a very plausible attempt in that the reader can understand what he/she is trying to say. It helps children gain confidence to tackle unknown words. Don't stress about homework too much at this age.

I let DD (Y1) spell the words herself.

However if she specifically asks for help (as long as it isn't every word) I would help her to try to segment the word and work it out herself.

I normally have a check through at the end and maybe point out 1 or 2 words (not too many) where she has misspelt - I'll point out words she has recently had for spellings, for example. I'll also say things, like "what comes at the beginning of the sentence?" - as she has a tendency to forget capital letters.

I imagine if there is a big mismatch between homework and school work the teacher realises that there has been a lot of parental help!

Her teacher at parents evening was just over the moon to see some attempt at work from her so I just allow her to do what she wants to without getting stressed so if she decides enough is enough we stop, i never stress over homework to be fair even with my other three i never do either but with her because she finds work so hard I just couldnt remember how I did it with the others two leave school this year! And my other one is at the end of primary school and never has any trouble getting her homework done.

I let DS (Y2 now, but same in Y1) spell things however he thinks they should be spelled. If he actually asks me how to spell X then I will first ask him how he thinks it should be spelled and will then tell him he's right or correct him and explain why.

I will do the "what comes at the beginning of a sentence?" conversation if he messes up his punctuation, though.

I probably correct too much and I'm sure it would be obvious to the teacher. I use his homework to help him with his sounds. He knows quite a few of the sounds and the alternatives but his encoding seems to be at a stuck point because he's not heard or tried to write particular words and I think his spellings are more difficult that needed right now. As he goes along I try and help him with the sounding out especially if I know he says it in a different way. Obvious ones are ff and th getting mixed up etc.

MadMum04

I correct my girls spelling. Can't stop myself. However, the school know I do - I'm very up front about it - and mainly I can't take seeing 'whith' for 'with' or 'wat' for 'what'.

My DDs both tell me their teachers never correct them - so I figure the teachers can see how they're actually spelling. I can see how they're actually spelling when I work with them at home, but I can also go through their work afterwards and correct spelling.

DD2 (Y4) now successfully sorted out with & what after months of steadily making her correct it. It's a minor victory - but it feels great!

My son is in Y1.

I wouldn't correct spellings but I would say a long/tricky word slowly so he could guess how to write the word. He sometimes asks questions like "c/k/ck?" or "f or th?" and I would tell him the answer but I wouldn't tell him unless he asked.

At school he has to write on his own without someone correcting spaces and punctuation so I wouldn't do it at home. I also wouldn't bother writing what she meant underneath. If I did this to my son he would be even more reluctant to write as he would compare what he wrote to what I had.