Spelling

[ByProudAzureCat]

Hello,

my DC (8 years old) would get 10/10 in weekly spelling tests, but forget them afterwards.
Is anyone experiencing the same issue?

Thank you.

Yes, spelling tests seem to be a complete waste of time as far as I can tell

Sort of.
It would take hours to "learn" the spellings. He could get far enough not to loose break time. But couldn't recall them a week later.
He has dyslexia.
Still can't spell now - about to sit GCSEs. Can't get the names of the Kings of England right - and one of those is his Brothers name!

I believe it's quite common to learn words for a spelling test and then to forget them afterwards, which is why spelling tests aren't the best way to learn spellings - it is better to teach spelling rules and reinforce them in lessons, and correct spellings that are frequently misspelled in written work.

However, spelling tests still seem to be quite popular, presumably because they are measurable and provide easy to set homework.

I'm lucky that my Y2 dd is quite a natural speller. However, what I do is go through her weekly spellings and make sure she's nailed them which is usually pretty quick. I will then throw in 4/5 of the ones from previous weeks or common words. I will then make up a sentence using some of the above and ask her to write it. Eg the last couple of weeks her spellings are some 'nge 'and 'dge' and I've been asking her to spell want/wanted and because. So in addition to her spellings I asked her to write 'I went to the fridge because I wanted cake but I could only find an orange' I know the sentence is silly but if it serves the purpose then so be it haha! Tbh school should be reenforcing spelling too so it might be worth discussing with them what they're doing and whether they think there's an issue.