Unreasonable spellings for year 3?

[Ashers40]

Out of interest what do you think?

Chalk hearts I think Feenie's point is that sending home lists of words (random or not) isn't teaching spelling (whether there is a test on a Friday or not).

Spelling needs to be taught not left to chance and the most effective way to teach spelling is in sound families.

is a spelling for the sound /n/ so the sound family would include the spellings and ... Child needs to learn which alternative to use for each word.

I don't know what didactic means and I'm 35

I think he had courageous and delicious as YR1 spelling as well, and retained it with words like catastrophic / catastrophe. Most words on the list is ok for my ds, even utopia and dystopia, but not didactic and dilapidated. He wouldn't use those words in speech, how he would use it in his writing? Like those experienced MN teachers say, there are a lots of better words to learn before those.

My ds gets words quite hard for spelling, but not with that kind of randomness. And all usable by yr3 children in speech or writing.

My guess would be that they are topic words (possibly relating to history?) and the teacher intends them to be used in written work.

I am having similar concerns about the spellings emanating from DDs school, following the introduction of the new curriculum. Her first week's spellings in September included 'acquitting' and 'disbarring'!

Whilst DD invariably gets 10/10 every week (with a lot of practice), the school also tests retention by giving the kids 2 'bonus' words from previous weeks to spell. She hardly ever gets these right. From what I can tell, there is very little discussion of the meaning of the words - and the fact that they are not (in my opinion) age appropriate vocabulary means that she does not use them in her free writing and, hence, is not retaining them.

In addition, her free writing is littered with misspelt common words that I would have expected her to know. Being a SATs year last year, we missed the 'transition' year to the new curriculum and we are definitely finding elements of this year's curriculum a struggle - and that's with a bright kid (all 3s and 4s on SATs). Spellings are my main bugbear, though maths is also an issue.

Given the amount of work coming home (too much, in my opinion) and the pressure on the kids to perform, I'm a big believer in intelligent use of time and effort - and teaching a 7 year old to spell 'disbarring' is not a good use of my time, or hers. As for didactic - words fail me (and that doesn't happen often!).