Does your child bring home spellings to learn ? (primary schooll)

[Ladyemem]

wondered what other schools do.

Our school dont and i think they should be.

Yes, 6 spellings a week from Y1, then 12 a week in Y2. They have a test on Friday.

I'm happy helping DS do it. I 'test' him once a day. He sits at the table and I call them out from the kitchen.

It's interesting seeing how much he's learning. He can spell far harder words than I would expect.

DS YR1 (aged 5) has 10 spellings a week

Can I ask why they are pointless? Dd had 8 a week in year R, and 10 since year 1. They are all based on a particular sound, or theme, eg, days of the week. They are tested at the end of the week.

I think some people say they're pointless because the kids get them all correct and then spell the words incorrectly for the rest of the year.

DS (yr3) had spelling tests every week in yr1 and 2 and always got 10/10 but never remembered them when writing stories etc...

DD (reception) has had spelling tests weekly since December (ish) and has pretty tough words but amazingly so far does seem to remember them when writing stories etc so I guess it can go either way

Yes, he gets 10 per week and is at an independent prep. They are quite difficult spellings too.

Sorry should have added that he is in Year 1.

DS is in YR and gets about 5 spellings a week (has had them since January). They tend to be groups of words with the same sounds so this week was coat, goat, soap, loaf, road etc.

Yr1-4 10-15 a week. Yr 5+ - apparently they do get them, never seen the book as my son is a smart arse and gets them right without learning them , and he only comes home 2 nights so it's the last thing I'm interested in!!

Ours don't get spellings but work to support spelling rules they're learning.Seems to work well

Year 5 and 30 spellings a week. Just normal average primary, can be quite difficult at times, eg definitely was one from last week. You do see that often mis-spelt.

I make her learn them over the weekend for a test on Monday.

DD is in year 1 and has never had spellings.

She spells things phonetically - which means she can attempt most words on her own, but doesn't always get them right.

I used to get 10 out of 10 on my spelling test every week throughout junior school and my spelling is atrocious. I also struggle to read unfamiliar words. I never learnt phonics.

My DC both do, Y3 and Y5.

I wish they did not, as I see it as a waste of their time. Children tend to learn weekly spellings for the test and do not transfer those words to their longer term memories, so they are not used in more general written work.

I support my DC in learning them because they want to and I think it is good that they want to do well at school, but I feel that the research is clear that there is no real benefit for them.

Interestingly, I am aware of several local schools who tried to drop weekly spellings because of the research but this had to be abandoned because of parental outrage!

Oh, and I have worked in education for 20 years.......

25 spellings in English and ten in second language every week, also times tables.
Sentences to write every day: maths homework; workbooks and tables; and Irish language homework: vocabulary, grammar and games like word search.
We are in Ireland.
Tests every Friday: including dictation and comprehension tests, both languages.
Dc is in year 2. (7-8 year olds)

Curriculum in Ireland is heavy on rote learning at this stage.

Apologies for staccato posting style- I am short of breath today (allergies)

Blimey venus that's a lot of homework.

How ridiculous. What's that saying, something about weighing the pig doesn't make it put on weight??

Not that I'm saying your DC is a pig, Venus!!

Notwilliam I agree.

It's pretty pointless learning spellings by rote,they really need to learn the context and rules so they can spell every word not just those learnt off by heart.

I thought every school was doing this and spelling lists had been discounted as having value.

But the words are not even 'learnt off by heart' anyway, they are so often learnt just for the test. Sometimes pupils can only spell them in the test if the words are given in the same order as they worked on them at home, which is a bit of a giveaway that it's a waste of time.

I would be interested to know why the OP thinks that her DC should be bringing home weekly spellings?

Yes from YR they have lists to learn every week.They have 10 in YR.15 in Y1 and 20 thereafter.I'm torn really as dgs usually gets them all right when tested but misspells the same words in creative writing.

Well exactly, that is the usual pattern.

I don't think we were allowed to misspell words at primary school. I think if we did that it would have a red line drawn through it. Maybe a reason why children misspell words in their creative writing is because (a) they can't spell, (b) they're used to misspelling/spelling phonetically (c) possibly their attention isn't drawn to misspellings and corrections in creative work.

My daughter doesn't often misspell words at home but she does constantly ask how she should spell things. I've seen her school work with a fair degree of creative spelling in it. But I'm guessing that she had no one she could ask.

Learnandsay, ok, sounds interesting if you were simply not allowed to misspell - what about in the early stages of building your spelling skills then?? You wrote nothing unless you knew it was correct? I may have missed something but I am not aware that having a red line drawn through a word makes the pupils suddenly able to spell any better.

Plus if a young child is working hard at the creative process of producing a piece of writing, how sad that that that creative process is 'constantly'interrupted by her need to ask how to spell a word.