is spelling taught in Reception or not?

[imaginaryfriend]

I've heard quite a few conflicting views on this and have been very much of the opinion that dd hasn't been taught spelling per se - she has been taught phonetic sounds and the letters to make them etc. But last week she came home and told me they'd learnt to spell 'all' 'are' and 'they'. She went on to say that they frequently do spellings in the class and the teacher 'tests' them on them. But we've never had anything home.

So ... is the idea that they should be able to phonetically correctly spell any word given to them by the end of Reception right or not? Or do they just learn and memorise words?

I refer the Honorable Members to my reply of Tuesday at 10.14 am.

Hello, ImaginaryFriend - did you like Sophie?

Hello seeker, yes Sophie went down very well and in fact I bought another book by the same author to read to dd, 'Harriet's Hare'.

I referred to your earlier post. I think it was right.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Hello!!! Can somebody answer to following question. At the end of the reception year most learners should be in the...spelling stage. options are mixed,early invented, conventional, non-spelling, purely phonetic. Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A combination some words spelt conventionally others not

Phonetically and conventionally are technically the same.

Have to chose only one option. I understand that there is something common but it is so tricky question have to answer, and only one option to give as suitable. :-(

Unfortunately there isn't one answer

I'm interested in how children learn which phonetic rule to apply when spelling.

DD is in reception and makes a really good effort at writing, mostly phonetically.

But lets say for example she wants to write "saw" - she would probably spell that as "sor" atm because she learnt the or digraph before the aw one.

There are so many ways to write the same sounds - how do they learn which is correct? Is it just practice and being corrected?

All words are spelt phonetically. In English we don't have a 1-1 relationship between sounds and spellings but written language is a visual representation of spoken. No one is a perfect speller but we learn from experience.
At the end if reception children will spell some words correctly and other words they might choose the wrong alternative.

Is the OP's school using Read,Write Inc? Because spellings are done as part of the lesson and not sent home. Also, the bit of writing about the caterpillar was written well phonetically, using the sounds she knows,presumably. It seemed very RWI to me.She will learn other spelling choices soon.

If schools are following the National Curriculum and teaching phonics spelling and reading should be taught together it's not confined to any one programme. Unfortunately many are still sending home lists and Look, Cover, Write Check for Monday tests.

My DD was doing RWI to the letter in her old (state) primary. Her spelling was appalling and she was deeply confused and frustrated.

She has moved to another school (private) where spellings are taught the old fashioned way. Not only does this give her a sense of achievement and satisfaction, her writing had improved enormously and she has grown in confidence too.

She's in yr 2.

Personally I'm not sure some of the new ways of teaching are better for all types of children, even if they are supposedly evidence based.

There were a lot of vagaries at her old school. Sessions called ridiculous things like 'topic' and all day fluid movement between activities so they had no real structure or focus.

Now she had proper lessons and individual subjects. It's much better for her all round.

Phonics is the old fashioned way ...it's the method that was used successfully for hundreds of years LookCover Write Check is the modern way in terms if education

Are you sure she was doing RWI "to the letter"? Schools often take programmes and "adapt" screw up them to suit their own biases and existing way of doing things. I ask because, given what else you describe as going on, it doesn't sound like a school that would be terribly keen on phonics, or understand the importance of doing a phonics programme properly.

Ok well what she is doing now is the same way I learnt at school 30 years ago. I don't know or care if that's new or old really. But it works for her in a way that what her old school were doing didn't.

Old school - no spellings ever came home. Apparently covered off in RWI sessions but she was still spelling most words incorrectly as she was spelling as they sounded in her head.

New school - spellings come home every week for test on Fridays. 10-12 words on a theme, practise writing them three times then recall verbally in random order as homework. DD's spelling and writing have come on leaps and bounds and she knows what she's doing as it's clear and there is structure.

30 years is new in terms of education and research shows that sending home lists of themed words to memorise for a weekly spelling test is ineffective for the majority of children. I'm pleased your child is an exception.

How long has she been in her new school?

If the research shows sending home words to memorise is ineffective, why so many school use this method, I wonder. From what I read on MN, most of the state school is doing it. When my ds gets some difficult words, he seems to be breaking down the words into segments and mumble, and he remembers it. Never needs to practice. Is this wrong way too? What is the right way to learn to spell words?

Most would say because parents like spelling tests but Id add many don't know how to teach spelling so they fall back on what happened when they went to school.

The right way to learn to spell words is to break them down into segments/syllables pay attention to any tricky parts and relate them to known words.

thespellingblog.blogspot.co.uk/2011/01/spelling-tests-necessary-evil.html

www.dyslexics.org.uk/spelling.htm

www.spelfabet.com.au/2015/08/spelling-list-signal-to-noise-ratios/

We didn't get spelling to learn for a test as such, but we had a little pot of high frequency words that was added to each week. We were just asked to go through them a few times each week to back up both reading and phonics.

literacyblog.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/sarah-donarskis-sophisticated-spellings.html

Thank you mrz. So, sounds like my ds has been doing it right way.