Y1 teachers! How am I supposed to teach spellings?

[becarefulplease]

DS has eight spellings to learn and we aren’t doing very well - any tips or reassurance gratefully received! He’s very enthusiastic but isn’t retaining the knowledge very well at all.

Look at Writing Wizard on a tablet. This will help with embedding the word. It’s multisensory and you can use a stylus or finger. You can add your own word lists.
Other multisensory methods will help, writing outside in water with a brush or chalk or writing in a tray of sand.

Thanks - he’s happy to write the words down but doesn’t seem to retain how to actually spell them so just a bit worried he’ll get zero on his test.

Writing them in a fun way will help. Those triangular prism shaped letter flip aids are good to show rhyme and patterns.
Early days in Y1 don’t worry.

Get him to actually sound out the word as he hears it and then write the letters down So, for example, 'cat' is c a t. He'll be learning the sounds that each individual letter or group of letters (like sh) makes in phonics, so he'll start to remember those. It's not a case of remembering how to spell each word, it's about knowing how to break down the word into the letters that make it up. His teacher will be able to see that he's tried to sound it out, even if he makes mistakes x

First , dictate the list to him and see how he gets on. See if he knows any of the words and then drop those. Then practice the ones left over in fun ways, magnetic letters, rainbow writing, writing in sand, water and a paintbrush on the pavement/fence etc. If there’s a rule for the week , remind him of the rule before each practice. Make it fun, and as much repetition as possible.

Another thing to try (DD preferred this, not a fan of the fun stuff) ) is to use two pens . One for the “normal” letters one for the sound/rule that week. Again, dictation rather than copying and a reminder of the rule.

Does he get all the right letters , just in the wrong order? Or is he struggling with the whole thing?

Thank you. He is struggling with the whole thing - so one word is ‘feel’ and he wrote it down three times and I said now you do it on a blank sheet of paper and he just hadn’t a clue, even when I said ‘what sound does it start with?’ he didn’t know.

Are the spellings linked to the phonic sounds he is learning. Because they should be at this stage. So did they all have the ee sound on them? Can he sound out phonics to read and blend?? Cos if he can he should be recognising the initial sound in feel. Lots of repetition is needed but his lack of phonic knowledge is concerning.

Are you doing it with the phonics sounds rather than the actual letters? I found this hard to get my head around at the start says ah buh cuh….

we had buzz and fell and tell on our spellings this week and she was able to sound them out (but was missing the second z and second L (fair enough!

writing them out was also helpful for sure

I’m also new to this so interested read others replies

No, all different sounds but he does know them all.

He can blend but I’m now worried.

A few things I've found help.

1. Letter stamps. Spelling the word using a stamp for each letter.
2. Write the word like this:

F Fe Fee Feel

1. Free website: spellzone has games, etc for each spelling rule
2. Sand timer. How many words can they spell before the sand runs out. Include some words they definitely know so that they feel good.
3. Make a wordsearch using the words. There's loads of websites that do this. If you don't have a printer, make. My children love making their own to 'test me '.

Whatever works. Just try to keep it fun.

Spelling them out with magnetic letters on an oven sheet has always worked well for mine (still using for the youngest who just started year 3). Scrabble letters work well for older children.

So if you show him the word can he read each sound, blend and tell you what it says?
If you ask him to spell it out loud can he do that?
if you asked him to write each sound as you say it can he do that?
8 words with all different sounds is a lot for the first week of year 1! Very surprised there’s no pattern to the words. Do they all have different sounds or just alternative spellings for the same sound? Like ee, ea, etc
I would focus on maybe getting 5 secure and see how he gets on.
If there’s no improvement in the next couple of weeks you need to speak to his teacher.

Hi! Primary teacher here (10 years, previously Head of English) — please don't worry, this is honestly one of the most common things parents ask me, and it's completely normal at this age.
Worth checking first: some of his 8 words follow rules he's already learned at school, so he can sound them out bit by bit. Others don't follow any rules at all (words like "the" or "said"), so sounding out won't help with those — they just need to be learned by sight instead. Knowing which is which changes how you practise them.
For the ones he can sound out, get him to say each sound as he writes it, rather than trying to remember the whole word at once.
For the ones that don't follow the rules, make it more of a memory game — cover the word up and see if he can write it without looking, then check together. Tracing the letters in shaving foam, sand, or with magnetic letters helps these stick too, much more than writing them out again and again.
A few other things that generally help: little and often (5 minutes twice a day beats one long session), picking 2-3 to really nail first rather than all 8 at once, and turning it into a game rather than a test — hide the letters round the room and hunt for them, or spell it out loud while bouncing a ball. Keeping it playful protects his enthusiasm, which matters more than the spellings themselves right now.
And truly — if it's not clicking yet, that's completely typical for Y1. It clicks for different kids at really different times. You're doing exactly the right thing just by practising with him.

theliteracyblog.com/2019/04/23/the-weekly-spelling-list/

Thanks very much, this is very helpful.

The words are feel, down, right, sort, food … Will have to check the other three.

@Smartiepants79 he can sound them all out and when I said to him at bed time (we came across the word feel) so what do you think it starts with he said ‘f’ and then said ‘two es and with a little prompting got to l. But then when I asked him what down started with he very proudly stated P!

Does he use mnemonics at all?
E.g. down could be down on wet nose. Get him to draw a dog sniffing the ground with a very wet nose. Ight pattern could be i go home tonight. Keep repeating the phrase aloud after he has written the 'l'. Obviously it's difficult to try to remember limitless mnemonics but a few should work. Write words on large whiteboard and discuss sounds as he writes.

Use mnemonics.

For example

Necessary - never eat cucumber eat salad sandwiches and remain young!

Or for your DS to just make his own mnemonics up.

Sorry if I sound awkward here but if he can’t spell then he isn’t going to be able to do that?

Are you asking him to say F-E-E-L out loud? This is not a good way to practise spellings, especially for a very young child. Get him to write it down. As others have said, also get him to ‘write’ it in sand, get him to chalk it somewhere maybe, pretend to write it in the air - that kind of thing.

(Ex-teacher here)

As for the ridiculousness of a Year 1 child doing a spelling test - well, that’s a matter for another thread. Is he at State or private school?

Good old fashioned - look, cover, write, check

Thanks @CousinBette . I was getting him to write it down but we weren’t getting anywhere so I just mentioned it at bedtime and he was able to tell me what feel started with and then two es and then the L. So it felt more positive than writing it down but maybe that’s wrong?

It is a state school, but I don’t know if the spellings are just to get them ‘used’ to homework or not. It’s fine if they aren’t too important but it would be good if he learned a few, if only so he doesn’t get zero! 👀

This is only useful for a few very specific words. There are simply too many words in the language to do this with - and as OP says, if he can’t spell them to begin with, this won’t work.

This seems mad. Is this private school?

my son isn’t doing spelling tests at all year 1!!

Oh bless him and bless you, try not to worry. It’s incredibly early days. Writing with a pencil is a heavy cognitive load at this age, all the coordination involved, let alone having to think about how every word is spelt.

Look, cover, write, check - why it isn’t effective:

https://jwed.co.uk/blog/seven-sins-of-spelling/