I think this is a ridiculous list of spellings.

[Elisheva]

Before I go and talk to the teacher could you tell me if you agree?
DS is in Y1. He has struggled with his reading but is pootling along and making slow but steady progress.
He is not a strong speller and gets 2 or 3 out of 10 in his tests. The school do not differentiate spelling lists within ability sets.
This week the spellings are:
scared, beard, near, chair, bear, pear, care, share.
He can't read them all. I don't want to work on them as I think so many different spelling patterns presented together will confuse him and actually be detrimental.
These are not spellings he has had before so not revision.
Should I just choose some different spellings to work on or is it something worth bringing up with the school?

Looking at that list you just posted, they are definitely focussing on alternative spellings. It depends how much has been covered in class, but in my opinion if you can't read the words there is no point in teaching alternative spellings. It sounds like he needs to go back and revisit the basic sounds and get those sorted before he can begin to decode alternatives.

Thank you PosiePootlePerkin
I'm planning on doing a big push over the summer holidays to make sure he is secure with his phonic sounds, and that he can read the 200 words list as he still stumbles over words like could, should, some, they, there etc.

Good for you OP you sound like a very supportive parent!

Two things:

1. What strategy is he using for 'learning' spellings?
2. Which of these words can't he spell?

They are a confusing mix for a child whose phonic knowledge might not be secure because you have a set of words containing the same sound (/air/) spelled 3 different ways; then you have a set in which one spelling ('ear') spelling 2 different sounds.

I'd try to make them less confusing by grouping them; so that you do all the words with the same 'sound', but different spelling, in them:

chair
share, care, scared
bear, pear

Then do the 'same spelling different sound' words
near, beard

Would he have difficulty with spelling the remaining sounds in the words?

We practice spellings by working out which sounds a word contains and representing them using Lego bricks, then working out which graphemes are used for each sound.
One problem we hit upon with these is that he sounds e.g. Chair out as ch/air, whereas I thought it would be ch/ai/r so I need to double check that anyway. He has no problem with the other sounds in these words.

Can he memorise short rhymes? I'd do mnemonic stuff if my child was having difficulty so for example:

scared, care, share. - Are you scared? Would you care to share?

bear, pear, - A bear likes a pear

beard, near, - your ear is near your beard

chair - the chair is in the air

Making stuff a game and not a chore really helps, the look, cover, write method has always seemed bizarre to me.

I did this sort of stuff with my child in Y1 who admittedly is not bad at spelling but now she automatically groups lists of spellings and I no longer have to help her at all - she's now Y2.

Your ds is right - chair is two sounds: /ch/ /air/

makes an /ay/ sound.

are all one sound when sounding out/spelling.

These are comparative to what our year 1 gets for spelling although usually we only have 2 'sounds' we are learning to spell - you seem to have way more than that which would be confusing, I agree.
From what I understand the spelling test is done in groups according to ability. I do not know whether all groups are doing the same words.
The range of reading ability is huge from ORT 2 to 10. I do not know how / if the children at ORT 2 are meant to participate in a spelling test?
From our school my impression is there is not enough focus in reception and Yr1 on learning to read and practicing at home. Without this fundamental building block I am not sure how you tackle the rest of the curriculum. It feels like the missing link to me.

These are my Year 4 son's for this week:

impractical, imprison, immature, immortal, imperfect, immeasurable, immoral, immigrant, import and impact.

He is a very good reader - but doesn't know what half of these mean. I'll explain them to him, but realistically he won't use them in his own writing for a good few years.

He'll get very low marks in his test. We're resigned to it now.

This is the new curriculum isn't it?

Also my daughter is in Reception. At the pace she's going she will find the words you've mentioned difficult next year, I know.

There's no way you should be suspecting dyslexia because he can't spell or read those, is there?

Everything has been pushed to such a fast pace now. So many kids are being left behind.

Op, there is no way my dd could read or spell those words. Maybe some of this weeks, but hardly any of last weeks. She was getting 1 or .
2 out of 10 each week and she now has only four spellings each week to learn (.she gets maybe 2 or 3 right.) our school too does not revisit words. In fact it would shock me if she even knew there were three ways to make the air sound!

(It does make you wonder though when they catch up with all the words they have missed when the rest of the class is getting 10 a week, so around 400 a year, but the ones with four words would have only 160, so less than half?)

Sorry, my previous post was supposed to say that is an alternative spelling of the /ay/ sound, so isn't in chair.

Thank you for all your replies, they've been very helpful.
It's not that I think the words are too hard per se, it's the mix of spelling and sound patterns involved in this particular list.
Today we looked at bear and pear, and I added tear. We wrote them with different colours for the first sound but same colour for the 'ear' part. If he can remember them tomorrow I think we'll look at 'air' words and that will do for this week!
I liked the suggestion of setting him a goal and trying to beat his personal best.
I've also found out that the SENCO has a drop in session each week so I might go and have a chat with her.

The problem with tear is that it can be pronounced two ways depending on the intended meaning. Tear a sheet of paper in half. Shed a tear at the sad film.