Spellings in Y2

[SpaceRaiders]

Dd is behind with reading, she’s doing lots of phonics based work, we’re slowly seeing improvement however the school is sending a list of spellings every week, most of which she can barely read, let alone spell. They then get tested every Tuesday, from what I can gather she often only gets one or two right which then affects her confidence in reading.

To me its all seems very counterproductive, surely you focus on phonics and reading then the spelling will come in later? I’m tempted to just tell the school we won’t do spellings homework going forward.

It doesn't sound like it's been appropriately differentiated. I would flag it with the teacher.It's a waste of time attempting to learn them if she won't get more than 2 right and as you say it's going to massively dent her confidence.

Speak to the teacher. Its normal to have spellings in y2 but if your child isn't up to that yet then maybe she could go out of class and do phonics with a TA. You need to work with the teacher , is she working at year 1 level?

Thanks, I’ll email the teacher about it. I just don’t see the benefit of sending spellings every week. She’s Y1 level across the board. She was behind pre-covid and now she’s falling even further behind.

Is she getting extra support? It does sound she needs some intervention.

This is part of a wider issue that I’m not really happy with. Senco is involved and she’s having play therapy to help with anxiety but apart from that, she reads to a TA once a week but I think that’s it. It’s a small village school with increasingly smaller intakes, so I think funding is a big issue. I’ll be moving her shortly if/when I can get her dad to agree.