Spelling Test in reception?

[wigglywoowoo]

DD has come home today and described what I would call a spelling test. She said today that her group were given boards and asked to write the words that the TA called out. There were 10 words and she mentioned that they included 'said' and 'could'.

I was a bit when she said that the TA was giving them ticks on a chart that they could all see. So DD was able to tell me all 7 scores!

We don't get any spellings sent home and the teacher has told me previously to just allow her to spell everything phonetically.

Are spelling tests common practice in reception?

I am a TA in reception and we quite often get the whiteboards out to write words and short sentences. It's all very relaxed and we encourage the children to sound it out, so we might say 'what's your favourite fruit? Can you have a go at writing that? You might get a child saying apple and they write apl ( those are the sounds they can hear). It's called read/write/ink in my school and it's very successful - there is no pressure at this age to spell it correctly. It's all about hearing the sounds.

I am a TA in reception and we quite often get the whiteboards out to write words and short sentences. It's all very relaxed and we encourage the children to sound it out, so we might say 'what's your favourite fruit? Can you have a go at writing that? You might get a child saying apple and they write apl ( those are the sounds they can hear). It's called read/write/ink in my school and it's very successful - there is no pressure at this age to spell it correctly. It's all about hearing the sounds.

DD is in reception and her spelling test today was dog, cat and going. She got three out of three.

I was just a bit surprised that they were doing any spellings this year.

natashap do the children get marked when they do this with you? My dd was boasting that she had done well but then went on to say so and so got X wrong, which she only knew because, they had got ticks on a chart, when it was spelled correctly and the whole group could see this.

I would think this might put a child off, if they could see that others were getting it right but not them.

Also I think 'said' and 'could' are quite tricky to sound out.

dd actually described 'could' as the tricky one

It sounds as if the TA is doing some assessment for the EYFS profile .
Writing words on whiteboards is a very normal part of reception routine and provided a child has been taught the "tricky" part of words such as said and could they shouldn't pose too much of a problem.

It isn't a spelling test in the sense you mean.

Ds3 got about 20 "bronze" words home to learn to spell and then they were tested on them. He got them all right as we got the sheet home and a bronze certificate. I don't know if he is aware of anyone else's score as he didn't mention it.

thanks mrz that is very helpful :)

jubilee10 good to hear that your ds did so well, sounds like they make it a big deal. was the test given to only a small part of the reception class? I can't imagine that the whole class could achieve this, as there is normally such a broad range of abilities at this age.

At DS3s school spelling tests are differentiated to those that the teachers feel able to cope with them.
Writing is the norm full stop in YR. Whether its white board or pencil and paper, whether its words that they are asked to spell, or words that they choose themselves. Practise makes perfect.
My DS wouldn't have a clue how anyone else got on - he's just not that interested. The teachers and TAs would be well aware if anyone had self esteem issues over this and would make sure that their efforts were appropriately recognised

I'm sure it would only be some of the class as there does seem to be quite a big range of abilities. It's no good asking ds, he just says "don't know, can't remember". It's his answer to everything at the moment.

If it is for the profile I would expect all children to attempt the task

They may just have been checking if the children were applying what they had learned as it was done during sound time.

Writing is the norm in dd's school too, however after being told to just allow her to spell everything phonetically and not correct or help her with spellings other than to advise her to sound it out. I was suprised that they were checking spelling this year. Dd said one girl on her table wrote "sed" and didn't receive a tick which I thought was an acceptable spelling under EYFS :(

My dd is very nosy and highly distractable, will often tell me what activities the other groups have done not just hers.