Year 1 spellings - new curriculum

[Strix]

My third child (DS2) is now in Year 1. My older two were always in group 3 (the top group). But I think DS2's words are harder. Is this a sign of the new harder curriculum?

I think the words are about the right difficulty for DS2. But I do wonder what group 3 looks like... prepping them for GCSE???

Just being nosey but what are the spellings?

Nose away. I don't mind. Most of them have been quite reasonable. But a couple weeks ago he had August, autumn, and author. And I thought those were really tough for year one, middle spelling group.

Generally we get the spellings and he doesn't know them at the start of the week. But we review them once, maybe twice, a day and by the test day he knows them. Apparently he's doing well. But, for me, it seems a steep climb in what is expected at year 1.

I dread to think what top group is like. DS is only in reception but at a higher book band and I'd think that even reading autumn and author would be a nightmare as you don't pronounce either completely phonetically.

DS2 is right smack in the middle of all of the middle groups (reading, spelling, maths) In fact I think he's quite low in the reading groups. The books he brings home have words that are much easier than the ones he's expected to spell. Surely the two subjects ought to be aligned? Or maybe not. I'm not a teacher so I don't really know how reading / spelling groups are set.

Any teachers on here feel free to come enlighten me.

My DD is in Yr1.

From what I can work out, they're supposed to be able to spell the common exception words by the end of the year. The rest is just about being able to spell particular sounds eg "au" - which is why your school have picked the examples of Autumn and author.

dera.ioe.ac.uk/18288/1/English_Appendix_1_-_Spelling.pdf

I'm not a teacher though, so would be more than happy to be corrected by someone who knows these things! :)

Oh my goodness... what a complicated obstacle to learning. Any six year who understands all that has got my admiration.

Seriously, I just learned to look at c-a-k-e and say cake. My six year old has enlightened me. And I now know to recognise it as a split digraph. To me, it's just cake. I wonder if he can spell digraph. Or antidisestablishmentarianism?

Strix My year 5yr old DD (who gets no spellings at all) can spell digraph, antidisestablishmentarianism and supercalifragilisticexpialidocious *, I don't think any of those are particularly hard - as they're mostly using the commonest method of expressing the sound in English

Spelling really appears to be the biggest reason to explicitly teach phonics rather than just hoping the kids work out the sounds, probably also explains why our school with seemingly very good phonics teaching doesn't send home spellings or tests.

• She was introduced it and managed to spell it enough for youtube

Maybe my standards are too low. But this will be the first time in my life anyone has ever made that point to me.

He does seem to be coping. So I guess I should let him get on with it.

Year 1 will be ploughing through or recapping phase 5 phonics (if following the Letters and Sounds programme) and the 'au' spelling of the 'or' sound will have been one of the sounds learnt that week. It makes sense that the spellings sent home are consolidating what they have been taught.

We had some difficult spellings a few weeks ago. Whole class got words like pyramid, career, interfere and mystery as part of the 10 spellings. I tried with DD(an average speller i think) but she only got 2/10 that week. She is not very keen on spelling as it is so gets more disheartened. It was parents evening the week after and the spellings seem to have returned to more appropriate words now.