Is this normal for year one/ primary two?

[Slinkysista]

Just had parent/teacher meeting for my son who is in primary two (N.I). Am quite surprised, teacher showed me a 'dictation' piece, where the teacher called out sentences and the children were expected to write them down without any aids or support.
When she told me this I was a bit given that he is mainly learning to recognise words not spell them.
Am I totally out of touch?
Is this normal?

What lesson was it part of?
As part of phonics we may do the odd sentence or two, as well as individual words. Its part of a recognised phonics programme but would be linked to the specific sounds we are learning at the moment.

I would also be surprised by this. Dd is in y1 and in the top group in her class and would struggle with this (depending on what the sentences were). Most in her class would be unable to do it.

Yes very normal (and very good practice) from reception onwards

Only the top group in year 1 do this. At least half the class are not at that stage yet in our school.

The diction would only be at their level ime.

So if learning the first few phonics lessons - so s a t p i n - the sentence or phrase would only include those sounds

My Year One child has been doing this too and they seem to cope ok. It's all been very simple stuff so far.

They also did a bit of it last year, IIRC.

I've not come across it but given the spellings that dd1 (year 1) comes home with I think she'd be able for this. Wouldn't get them perfect but she'd be able to have a good go.

my daughter in Yr1 had to write down a passage the teacher read out recently. From what she said the whole class did it. She liked it but she said the passage was a 'rubbish story'.

I don't think they are expected to spell everything correctly, more to try and write things, so use the phonics knowledge they have to try and do it.

I think all mine have done this sort of thing using individual whiteboards. There was always a gasp of delight when the teacher asked them to fetch the whiteboards so it was obviously popular.

When I went to open afternoon my (Y1) DD had definitely been doing this! Some of the spelling was comical