Year 1 Spellings

[MinPinPuzzz]

My DS has had his first ever spelling list home yesterday and excitedly wanted a test before we could even get through the front door. The spellings were:

Lay
Spray
Crayon
Tray
Shout
Cloud
Found
About

He got them all right without looking. He was very happy and it means we won’t have to do any more before next Friday. At first, I thought this was wonderful and the less time wasted on homework the better.

My questions are, do you think these are differentiated or that the whole class got the same? If he doesn’t have to learn them, will he become lazy and complacent with tests? This was a major trait of mine throughout school, I only learned how to revise at university. In school, I typically performed well with no effort and eventually became very avoidant of failure therefore was afraid to try.

He got them right because he has been taught the alphabetic code required to spell them correctly.

No need to 'learn' them visually - he is in Y1 so he's being asked to use knowledge and skills which have already been taught, which is exactly what should be happening.

Brilliant, thank you. He’s my PFB so I’m clueless.

The 'ay' spelling and 'ou' spelling are phase 5 sounds which he is doing in year 1. My guess is that these are the 2 sounds they have learnt this week and therefore revising at home for homework. As pp says exactly what should be happening.

Fantastic that he knows them. You can always ask him to write them in a sentence to check he understands.

In my class, this is what often trips them up and is a good way of knowing if they properly understand the spelling rule 

As PPs have said, these words are all spelled logically using phonics, so there is nothing to ‘learn’, as such. However, some children will struggle with these words, and with spellings generally. If your son finds spelling easy, it’s one less thing to worry about!

I remember posting on here about my DD a year or so ago, because she finds spellings easy and hasn’t needed to revise. I had similar worries that she was ‘missing out’ somehow. People advised me not to worry, and to use the time doing something else fun!

He's meant to get them right - firstly it's his first list and secondly they're clearly chosen because they're decodable so when you know the phonics you can spell them. If he was given a list of spellings he couldn't decode he'd learn them parrot style for the test then instantly forget them. The vast majority of tricky spellings will be learned not for a spelling test but because he sees and writes them regularly.