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Primary education

Join our Primary Education forum to discuss starting school and helping your child get the most out of it.

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Original poster

Yr 1 spellings drive me to drink........

43 replies

niceglasses · 11/05/2007 07:34

Any nice tips from lovely patient mammies and teachers with (quite hard I think) Yr 1 spellings? We seem to be caught in a trap of row-tantrum-row-eventually do them. He is not too interested. Fairly bright, but a fidget. I feel I am not motivating here at all, but putting off. Often ends in tears which makes me awful.

I do think they are reasonably hard for a 6 yr old e.g telephone, purple, quick.

Dunno tho, can't remember what I was doing when 6.........

OP posts:

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lucy5 · 11/05/2007 07:40

Gosh they are hard. My year 1 dd has just started doing spelling and they are words like from, for etc. No real advice we just read, cover, write. Not very exciting. Maybe, if you have the inclination you could write the words on long strips of paper and he has to match them up like dominoes or snap. doesn't really help letter by letter. I suppose turning it into a competition, memoey game, timed or something might encourage him. How is he with more basic words?

Original poster

niceglasses · 11/05/2007 08:00

Thanks Lucy, yes I think they are a bit hard. He is okay with the more basic words, but his writing is poor too - mainly because he finds it so hard to sit still. The competition thing is a good idea. I just think its too much just now - they get 8-11 spellings per week and they vary in level, but on the whole, too hard I think. Its off-putting.

OP posts:

percypig · 11/05/2007 08:01

Word boxes, make a game out of it, get him to ask you the spellings so he hears them spelt correctly then swap, star chart with rewards.

Try to make it just part of his routine - ie every day he has to: make his bed, help set table and learn spellings. When he does all three well/without complaining he gets stars, end of week gets s treat

lucy5 · 11/05/2007 08:04

Have a look at bbc There might be a few ideas on here.

Hulababy · 11/05/2007 08:22

How about turning them into a game of hangman?

lexcat · 11/05/2007 09:54

DD was like that after talking to her about it discovered she was worried about getting them wrong so didn't even try. Then I started treating her for having a go even if it was total wrong. Didn't take long and she was asking to do her spellings.
We don't use treat any more but she is now happy to learn her spelling and is so please with herself when she is tested and does well.

Blueblob · 11/05/2007 09:54

I have some foam bath letters so sometimes we do a couple at bath time. A little but often approach. I give him a small selection of letters to use, rather than confusing him with the whole box!

I do the same with magnetic letters of just cutting up some on squares of paper.

He's a complete fidgit and doesn't enjoy writing that much. He goes nuts at the idea of sitting there writing them out.

Blueblob · 11/05/2007 09:57

One other thought! My son used to be very unconfident and hated getting anything wrong. He'd deal with it by not even trying and being silly.

Sometimes and I still do this with more complicated words is give him only the letters in the word and get him to put them in the right order. It was a lot less daunting.

robinpud · 11/05/2007 10:08

These are wierd spellings for a year 1 child , unless he is very able. Are they trying to learn sight words or words with tricky spelling patterns?

Stupid things that sometimes work
typing them on a keyboard in huge font
you spelling them.. wrong of course and him marking and correcting in bright felt tip
bingo with the words- he may not be writing them but looking at them a lot will help
using a computer programme where you drag and drop the letters into the correct order

I am struggling to see why the teacher wants them to be able to spell such disparate words with out any sort of logic. Mind you I often miss the obvious!

Debbiethemum · 11/05/2007 10:14

Thanks for the tips about magnetic letter as I can use those, but these are the spellings my year1 ds has to learn
their
there
you
your
pear
stair
help
here
must
just
4 different ways of spelling the same sound !!!
He was quite surprised when I told him that a lot of grown-ups can't to their & there

slalomsuki · 11/05/2007 10:23

ds1 is in year 1 and his spellings this week are

Autumn
August
Laundry
Haunt
Appauled
Applause
Haul
launch
and 2 others I can't remember because he has his book at school

I get him to do them in the car in the morning either her reads them and I then test him on them or if he wants to I get him to write them on a piece of paper

robinpud · 11/05/2007 10:33

slalomsuki- please tell me he has to learn appalled and not appauled....
So he is obviously doing long vowel sounds which is just right for the end of year 1.

slalomsuki · 11/05/2007 10:52

Thats why I with my university degrees am having to relearn these words and spelling as you can see is not my strong point

Debbiethemum · 11/05/2007 10:53

Having seen Salomski's post, maybe my ds has easy spellings
He is still struggling though

slalomsuki · 11/05/2007 10:57

I find it a bit relentless this spelling lark though. Every week he gets tested and if he even gets one wrong he gets the same list again until he gets all 10. Some weeks are easier than others, last week was "or" words ie pork, sword etc so he raced through them but this week may be a struggle.

His reading is good though as a result, he is on level 11 of the ORT and finds most of these books easy.....his words not mine.

Its the maths I worry about

robinpud · 11/05/2007 11:17

He's obviously well away with the reading. That's quite a harsh system to have the same spelling list until it is 100%.. althought eh cynic in me can see that it is an easily manageable system for the teacher even if it appears to be horribly demotivating for the child.
What's the maths problem?

Remember.. they all walk and talk at different ages.. spelling, reading and adding etc folllow the same rule!

fireflyfairy2 · 11/05/2007 11:20

My dd is in P.1 & is just 5.

She left me this note lastnight:

"Mammy I love you.

I mis you. (I was on the toilet!!)

No boys alod in my rum."

I am dreading her learning to spell properly!

SoMuchToBits · 11/05/2007 11:35

My ds is in yr 1, and his spellings this week were:-

Horrible
Terrible
Terribly
Horribly
Probably

Last week he had:-

Argue
Argument
Stomach
Fierce
Price

But the children don't all have the same spellings, different groups get diferent ones according to their ability. My ds seems to be able to learn them OK, but other spellings he hasn't particularly learned tend to come out quite phonetically, so his firemen are currently rescuing people from "berning bildings"!

cece · 11/05/2007 11:38

LOOK

SAY

COVER the word

WRITE it

CHECK - have you got it right?

repeat as necessary...

slalomsuki · 11/05/2007 11:40

our class works at their own pace but now they have 10 different spelling sets of words going amongst 14 kids in the class so I don't see how a teacher can manage that.

Homework for the week is spelling, comprehension(1 page of reading followed by 1 page of questions on it), writing(letter formation) Literacy(last weeks was wirte two stories and compare the significant events in each), Maths(last weeks was 24 sums and working stuff out with coins) and we have a reading book every night.

Its relentless and thats why I do the spelling in the car

mankyscotslass · 11/05/2007 11:50

Slalom, HOW MUCH homework? omg, ds starts yr1 in september, i have no chance.....your poor ds. I think that's a lot!

slalomsuki · 11/05/2007 11:58

I think its a lot too.

But the year 2 teacher assured me that she will not give him as much when he gets to her class. Her comment was year 1 are ahead of year 2 with reading and spelling due to a new year 1 teacher.

We had to take homework with us on Easter holidays just to make sure we got is all finished in time to return.

Gobbledigook · 11/05/2007 12:00

I think that's bloody ridiculous. Some children in year 1 are only 5 - not hitting 6 until July/August.

Even for a 6 year old that is way too much. I wouldn't want my child in a school that gives so much homework. I'd be extremely unhappy with it.

SoMuchToBits · 11/05/2007 12:05

That's ahuge amount of homework. All we get is a reading book to take home each night, and 5 spellings for the week. And we have only had the spellings since Easter, not at the beginning of year 1.

daisybump · 11/05/2007 12:11

Gosh Niceglasses....you could be me, but my DS is only in Reception. Each week he has three reading books, a library book and maths game and four or five new spellings....usually only four/five letters but quite similar ie made/make, look/like. He's not even five yet and I think it's too much for him. We have a fight every night in order to get any of his homeowrk done, and it often ends in tears too...mine and his as he is bloody knackered after the full day at school. We also get littel notes in his workbook like "needs more practice". Makes me feel like it's me back at school. The latest was a letter home asking us to practice letter formation as they have noticed that some of the children aren't forming their letters properly. Isn't teaching letter formation their job? LOL

Some of your DSs words though do seem a bit much for a 5/6 year old.

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