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Primary education

Join our Primary Education forum to discuss starting school and helping your child get the most out of it.

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Original poster

Do you think spellings tests are a waste of time?

28 replies

Bomper · 04/12/2009 10:55

Dd1 has always been in the top group for spellings, and after practicing them religiously for a week nearly always gets 10 out of ten, if not 8 or 9. However, her 'day to day' spelling can be atrocious ! So, all these tests seem to prove is that she is good at learning things parrot fashion but that none of it sinks in.

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MollieO · 04/12/2009 10:59

I think I agree. Ds does well at his spellings but struggles to read the same words in his reading book.

drivinmecrazy · 04/12/2009 11:00

I agree. DD now in yr4 and they don't have spelling tests, just homework with a list of 8 words to incorporate into sentences. Far better as it involves punctuation, imagination and spelling. Just like your DD my DD was fantastic at spelling tests but amazes me with her spelling in free writing.
I have stopped correcting her homework before she hands it in so teacher can see how she's doing, unless she asks how to spell something

bruffin · 04/12/2009 11:06

I agree DS used to do okay in his spelling tests, mainly because they tested a sound a week ie "ough" words, but being a intelligent boy he knew all the words had the same spelling.
But at 14 his spelling is truely awful.

MarionCrane · 04/12/2009 11:09

I agree with you, Bomper.
Learning things by rote is all well and good, but if that doesn't translate to being able to recognise and spell those words when writing in sentences, it's all a bit pointless.
My children used to come home with lists of words, and some of the words were completely new to them ie: they didn't even know the meanings.

Deadworm · 04/12/2009 11:10

I disagree. Surely the fact that your children seem to have such poor spelling is evidence of why it is important to concentrate on this skill. Just remind them not to be careless when spelling the same words outside of a test.

Tests aren't the only way of improving spelling. The best way is loads and loads of reading. But the tests do help children to see the structures of spelling in some English-language words, by learning similar words together. And they help them to get tricky words under their belt, even if they do need to be reminded to show care in their general writing.

I bet spellings would be worse without any tests.

MollieO · 04/12/2009 11:12

Ds's spelling is excellent. He can guess how to spell a lot of words and does well in his spelling tests every week. His reading though is really really poor.

TillyMintSpy · 04/12/2009 11:17

Well spelling tests do not help children to learn how to remember and use the spelling in context. Hpwever, a daily 5min practice for the test can really help the child to retain the spellings better. Also if they practise using them in sentences, that helps them to apply them in context.

Also if they are done in phonic groups they enable the child to establish an awareness of the spelling pattern used.

Addictedtothepc · 04/12/2009 11:39

We don't waste much time on spellings - 5 mins once a week is enough to get dd 9 or 10. I'm more concerned with ability to comprehend written text, construct a sentence and problem solving in Maths; skills based rather than memory based knowledge and it is on these things I'd rather concentrate our precious one to one time on.

Bonsoir · 04/12/2009 11:40

No, absolutely not.

seeker · 04/12/2009 11:49

Many schools don't do spelling tests now because there are so many children like my dd who got 100% at every one throughout her primary school years but can't spell at all now. Learning to spell a word for a test is a completely different thing to spelling while writing.

kreecherlivesupstairs · 04/12/2009 12:58

Not sure I agree with you. My dd is a voracious reader, but struggles with handwriting and spelling. I dread to think what her spelling would be like if she didn't have a list of ten to learn every week. Once she has learned a word for her test,she generally remembers how to spell it properly again. OTOH, some of the words she's had to learn are a bit

reup · 04/12/2009 13:44

I think all the research show that tradtional spelling tests do not help day to day spelling. Children view it as something very different. They often learn them in the exact order and even if you vary the order in the test they get confused.

One approach is to get them to write the word in the context of a sentence. Or to dictate sentence with all the words in.

I have been teaching in a tutorial school and they want me to to do spelling tests. A group of about 5 Y4 children got 10 out of 10 for a few weeks in a row but would then spell tricky but common words like "saw" wrong. I changed the test to dictating about 4 sentences with all the words in. They all went from 10 out of 10 to 1 or 0 out of 10.

seeker · 04/12/2009 14:05

My understanding is that spelling tests are one of those things that schools have to do because they are one of the things parents use to judge whether a school is "good" or not.

singersgirl · 04/12/2009 14:17

I think they're a waste of time from my own children's experience, and have heard that research shows they don't confer much benefit. Our primary seems to organise them really oddly and send home a mixture of easy to spell but difficult to understand words, and hard to spell words - though, as I pointed out to DS2, all words are easy to spell if you know how to spell them!

DS1 has just started secondary school and they are still having spelling tests, but these seem marginally more useful in that they are lists of commonly misspelt or confused words (eg surprise, disappointed, accommodation) or subject-specific terms (polygon, equilateral etc). If they get any wrong they have to write them out 10 times, which seems the best teaching tool so far!

Hulababy · 04/12/2009 14:28

I don't think they have very much educational value.

My DD (7y) is an excellent reader, and can easily learn spellings in order to get full marks in her spelling tests each week.

However in independent written work this does not carry over. She has dyslexic tendancies and these show up in her independent work, but never in spelling tests.

Spelling tests have not benefitted her at all as far as I can see.

I know that this is not uncommon.

marialuisa · 04/12/2009 15:21

Waste of time IMO. Very glad that DD's school doesn't do spelling tests.

LadyThompson · 04/12/2009 15:26

It's reading that brings on a child's spelling. Reasearch has shown this over and over again. Can't believe schools still bother with spelling tests. It's a sop to the parents and a load of guff.

Spectroscopy · 04/12/2009 16:54

At my son's school they are put in groups for spellings not based on how well they do in tests but how they use the spellings in their day-to-day writing afterwards. My son is in the bottom group

I like them [the tests] as they remind me to do writing with him (up until recently most of our time was spend on getting the letters the right way round - he is the third youngest in a yr 1 class) and let him realise that he needs to think about his spellings. However, whether that view changes as he gets older I don't know!

mrz · 04/12/2009 17:27

Yes a total waste of time.

cornsilkwearscorsets · 04/12/2009 17:32

only valuable if spellings are matched specifically to the child's individual ability. So group spelling tests are generally not much use.

Goblinchild · 04/12/2009 18:15

I test them first, then I give them up to ten of the words they couldn't spell to learn.
And it's differentiated to 3 levels.
They also don't know when those words will crop up in another test, and I look for them in their independent writing and check.

hocuspontas · 05/12/2009 13:56

In year 1 and 2 there are 5 differentiated groups for spelling. They get either words connected to the phase of phonics they are currently learning or words to do with a topic e.g. Fire of London would have a list of 5 words that week like burning, sizzling, London, bakery, Samuel Pepys. This helps with their written work (hopefully!) There will also be times when they get days of the week, 2D shapes, 3D shapes, food, weather etc.

Is it a waste of time? The jury's still out on that one.

mrz · 05/12/2009 15:39

How many of the spelling test words can they spell correctly 6 months after the test?

violetbloom · 05/12/2009 23:47

I agree that they're a waste of time in part. But certain words like 'first' and 'laughed' have really stuck in dd's mind since having them in a spelling test. Quite a few of the words she's learned to spell have sunk in thinking about it. Her teacher gets them to write the words in a sentence as part of their homework and I think this helps. I also noticed that the same words come up again and again, 'through', 'although', commonly used words that are hard to spell. It's interesting to see if dd's remembered them or not, often she has. But she didn't know how to do them beforehand as I asked her before helping her spell them correctly.

frakkinaroundthechristmastree · 06/12/2009 00:32

Tests as in lists of words read out, yes.

Oral spelling, usually. Written spellings, not so much.

Tests which come as dictation, no.

Words which are learnt for one week and the never used again, yes.

When I was at school we have 20 words a week, they were used in a dictation on Monday morning and we were expected to be able to spell ANY word that had previously been on the list. That, IMO, is a good approach but sadly spellings are often given for the sake of giving spellings and the work isn't built on.

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