'Ridiculous' words in Year 3 spelling tests.

[Oblomov]

Ds has a spelling test every tuesday. They have a sheet of 24 words that they write every day. On friday it comes home and we talk about it, go over it, over the weekend. Then on tuesday he has the test.

But the last few words in the list, over the last few weeks, have been so hard that I think they are ridiculous. This week they start off with : car, poem, rhyme, rhthym, but wait for it, then then go onto :
alliteration
and this is the one
onomatopoeia.

I showed it to dh. He said, 'you've got to be kidding'. I said ' they are only 8. This is wrong.'
What do you think?

I agree with you but could it be that they have been using these terms in literacy work with poetry?

I don't see the problem to be honest. Surely you want them stretched a bit and kids like learning interesting words.

oh. o.k.
Maybe I am a bit out of touch with what children that age can learn.
He has had :
enthusiastically, unbelievably, biodegradable , in the last few weeks. I just thought those words were too hard to be learning at such a young age. But if you think it is o.k., I accept your better judgment.

I think all my 8 year olds homework is too hard! Similar spellings to what you have mentioned and as for the maths! (Sorry numeracy)

My dd copes ok with it all tbh, maybe I underestimate the capabilities of an 8 year old.

I have no "better judgement" about it I do remember having paraphernalia on a spelling test in about Y4 though

Is your DS getting upset about these words?

Paraphernalia ?? Good god ! I'm sure I never even came across that word until I was a teenager !
No he is totally unbothered by it all. It was ME ! I was shocked by how hard it was.

I don't think alliteration is particularly hard tbh, as it's phonetic.

Onomatopeia is trickier, but paraphernalia is also quite a straight forward word to work out if you know phonics, isn't it?

If your child is coping with them then I don't see the problem. Surely you should be pleased that they are giving words that challenge him instead of his spellings being too easy and boring?

If they have to learn spellings, it would be more useful if they had the words they are likely to use in their everyday writing. If they can already spell all the words they use in their everyday writing, they really don't need to be doing spelling tests.

We set spellings based on spelling patterns. For example, words that start with mis or dis. We find it makes more sense than random spellings. I still have parents who tell me their DC can read all the words and know what they mean. I say great, but it's a spelling test, not a reading test...

Haha, you have to wonder why he also has "car", though. Really? Wtaf is the point in that, if he's capable of spelling onomatopoeia?

Ps- cecily- spelling tests are often given for the parents...

I think the only ridiculous aspect is that there are 24 words on the list. If the school wants to do a spelling test they should maybe do an easy/medium/hard list. Our old school have 5 to easy group, 8 to medium and 12 to the hard group.

I don't think that alliteration is very hard because it's phonetic and that the hardest bit of onomatopoeia is the "poeia" bit which wouldn't take long to read.

Bloody hell - what school is this? I thought ours was bad. We have words then need to put each one into a sentence... We have had bereavement in the past.

As it starts with car I woul imagine it is a case of "red group you learn up to number 8, green group up to number 15 and purple learn them all" in order to allow for the test to be easily differentiated.

Other than the word car it is pretty obvious that the words fit in with what they are looking at in literacy. Spellings are supposed to push them a bit otherwise it would be pointless.

Yes my year 3 son has very similar words to that. I have been shocked but he hasn't complained so I'm not mentioning it to him. Not everyone in his year group has the full 20 to learn every week. Depends on their ability, some have five, some ten etc. The first 5 are relatively easy, and then build up to harder words. I think only the top whatever percent of the year are expected to try the hardest words. And they are generally related to other projects they are doing in school.

I'm not expert, just a Mum who surfs a lot about primary education, but it does appear that they are using terms from school work (alliteration linked to ?poetry work and biodegradable linked with ?environmental work/ geography).

The issue for you is one of whether your DS is struggling or not. If this is too hard for your DS then perhaps you should speak with the teacher.

I think what is slightly unfortunate is that it seems the system is one of rote learning (so learning to parrot, but possibly not necessarily to understand) - however, for some students this old-fashioned approach does work.

More recently there seems to be an argument that spelling is learned better through word families/ roots (so understanding -ough/ ought words, -tion/ -sion words, prefixes, suffixes, etc...) (e.g. teaching morphemes here: www.tlrp.org/pub/documents/no14_nunes.pdf

HTH

My Y3 dd has had some weird ones recently too - not at them because they are so hard, really, but just odd words to choose! Not ones you'd use often. I think the reason is they are linked to work they have done.

At least they only get 15 in her school!

Most DC love learning really hard words and you may find that onomatopoeia is one that will be remembered. Dh and I used to play a game with our DC when they chose a hard word to learn to 'show off to grandparents or other family. DD aged 4 chose catastrophe and DS aged 7 chose manoeuvre.

Bloody hell, my y3 ds only gets 6 or 7 and even that is challenging enough to us. He always gets them right but were I to test him on them a week later wouldn't have the foggiest. I'm not sure how useful it all is.

I don't object to my child learning to spell words they use in class and understand. I would object hugely to my child learning to spell words they didn't understand. I don't personally remember being taught what onomatopoeia was until secondary school, although obviously I had plenty of unwitting experience of it in poetry and books that I had read!

I would rather my children had to put their words into sentences (which they do at their school) than that they just learnt them as lists of spellings, tbh, because at least then it would be a test of whether they did genuinely understand them. My dss' school seems to go for the lists of spellings based on spelling patterns rather than based on what they are learning in class at the moment, which I think is useful for learning to spell, as it reinforces the fact that there are patterns in spelling, but it does result in some words that are actually very difficult to put into sentences and not related to anything they are learning (ie without the requirement to put them into sentences, it could easily turn into an exercise of learning how to spell for one day something you never use in your life again, because you have no clue what it means)! The lists normally result in a discussion about other words with similar meanings and the connections and differences between words and forms of words (eg explanatory-explanation, aggressive-aggression, honourable-honoured, decision-decisive, dispossession-dispossessed, conclusion-conclude, explosion-explosive) as ds works his way towards thinking up a sentence with the actual word in it and not a related word/the wrong form of the word.

I would never object to a word that a child did not understand, why would you. It is a learning opportunity!

You never know whAt the teachers plan is.

Well thanks for all the posts. I did think 24 was alot, but they do go from easy to harder. And like sell-by says, they are often based on similar pre-fixes or suffixes - such as : finally, eventually, enthusiastically.
Like others gave said, he seems fine with it all, is not struggling at all, and gets nearly all of them right, so it was just ME that was shocked. But, no more.
Thanks.

I remember DD1 having onomatopoeia in Y2 (now Y5) - I remember it as it was the first spelling that I didn't know, and yes, I thought it a bit ridiculous.

The kids thought it was wonderful having such a long, complicated (impressive?) word to learn, and enjoyed using it in their work afterwards. So their teacher was right.

I do think that 24 words sounds like a lot.

Interestingly, in Y3 they don't have spelling tests, they have activities based around what they've been doing that week in phonics. But spelling tests return in Y4!

I would object to a word my child didn't understand if they were only being asked to write out the words a few times and learn how to spell them. That's just stupid.