Weekly Spelling Tests in Reception

[Pigletin]

Hi everyone, my daughter is getting weekly spelling tests in Reception, she is given 10 words and has a week to practice them...is this the norm across most schools? I would have thought it's quite early to be testing 4 year olds in such a way so I wanted to see if this is the norm.

My youngest grandson is in reception and he gets 10 words to learn each week and they have a spelling test on fridays

Mine is in reception doesn't get any spellings just a reading book every week.

In my DD's school they didn't have weekly spelling tests until Y2.

It was part of differentiation at our school. Children who can read and write got spelling test from the start of reception. Rest of the children got list of words to decode.

Thanks everyone, it looks like it varies from school to school.

My DD got 10 words every week to learn to decode and read. There was 9 sets and once they’ve learnt all 9 they go back to set 1 and learn to spell them with a little test at the end of the week. Now that she’s completed all them the school give her year 1 spellings to learn

NO that's unusual and way too early. A lot of the kids are still working on blending forcing rote spelling learning on them at that age will be counter productive. The focus should be on improving fluency and making literacy enjoyable.

Sadly it is the case in some years but it is not good Early Years practice. As Fullofjellybeans says it can be counter productive. The focus should be on emergent writing and developing a love of literacy.

I remember my kids' reception teacher complaining that he wanted to know how to spell various words and asked her. We moved him to another school were teachers weren't so stupid and were more interested in satisfying his thirst for knowledge than imposing their own trendy educationalist drivel. There's no one size fits all here. I think imposing such tests an all kids would be deeply damaging for some, but for those who like spelling it's a great idea.

Defo not. We are a very high performing state school and no spellings until Yr2

DD has started with 5 each week but in yr 1 - they are learning sounds & phonics and spellings don't easily tie in with that, a bit confusing but am not concerned at all.

The local independent school where we live does spelling tests from the 3rd term of Reception.

If the class is very mixed ability, it makes sense as a means for differentiating work for those who have already mastered basic Reception skills.

My DD did 140 breakthrough words in YR which were learnt and tested weekly: and she was an August birthday. Some need to be pushed and she thrived. Others cannot do this and shouldn’t do it in YR. DD had a great memory and phonics wasn’t the only method used in our day! High achieving year group though!

Mine did simple spellings all based around a particular sound e.g lad, pad, sad etc and they became slightly more complex as they went through. It wasn’t a hassle and I treated it as writing practice.

Spelling tests only just introduced in Yr3 for my eldest. Youngest is in reception and they are working on sounds, digraphs, blending and bring home a new book each week - no testing or other homework set.

If I remember correctly we got a list of first 20 and then 100 high frequency words in reception. First the kids learned to decode them and by the end of the year they had to also be able to spell them. Words like 'the', ''she' etc. The 10 words a week thing started in year 1.

Thanks everyone for your comments. I asked the teacher about it and it was introduced as part of differentiation for the more advanced children. However, she said that this seems to be a high achieving year group as the majority of children now are able to do this with ease.

I have one DD in year 2 and one in reception. DD1 started having weekly spelling tests after Christmas in Year 1. I'm not sure how I would have felt about spelling tests in Reception. It feels awfully soon.