1st grade parents

My boys have 10 spelling words each week and 5 "bonus" words. The regular list is great: bus, with, says, make, etc. The bonus 5 this week were: lusterous, dined, claimed, flustered and groaned. (BTW, isn't lusterous spelled lustrous? I hate to correct the teacher's spelling list....)

One of my boys does fine with the bonus words, but they are stressing my other one out. This week I told him he only had to learn 2 of them. I wouldn't bother, but when she writes the number correct on the top, it's out of 15. So, they feel like they get a bunch wrong when they don't participate in the bonus round.

I feel like these are crazy words for 1st graders. She's a young, fairly inexperienced teacher. How would you handle this?

 

Yikes! I think that's a bit much, especially the bonus words. My DD is pretty good with that kind of stuff and those would definately be difficult for her. Sounds like she needs to be making it out of 10 with maybe a +2 or + whatever # of bonus words they get. I'd probably shoot her an e-mail or voicemail and ask her if it's really out of 15 and explain that your kids think that b/c she has /15 on there they feel like they aren't doing as well as expected. We've only had math homework so far, so no spelling lists, but I think that she mentioned when they do start the spelling lists that it will be mostly "snap" words which are the most common 100 words in our language that they need to know by just looking at them (in a "snap"). I've always felt like I can ask the teachers ?'s or let them know how my DD is feeling/handling things. Sometimes it's just not ever brought up before and the teacher honestly didn't know how it was affecting a child/children. Hopefully she'll be able to see that maybe a little adjustment can be made to make the kids feel more successful.

 

Those are hard bonus words! I know that each 1st grade teacher we had last year graded her bonus words differently. Since she is a first year teacher, she may not realize how difficult the words are for the kids. I would give her a call and talk to her. That way you will have the real info on what she expects, and maybe after your feedback she will make a change.

 

Those are tough words for 1st grade....

I would talk to her---ask about where she gets the bonus words. I know our teachers selected different ones in different ways. One class kids picked them (and they could be odd words!!!), another were words from math/science/etc, and yet another picked words from their writing that she was seeing spelled wrong often in journals(so each kid had different words).

Does she have a split class 1/2nd---sometimes the bonus words are the next grade up for split classes.

I would also ask if she could write x out of 10 plus____ (bonus). explain how it is stressing your kids (most likely others).

 

You are right, it is "lustrous."

I had this problem when DS1 was in second grade. I wrote the teacher, and she ignored me, but by Christmas she had scaled back. I figure she heard from a lot of other parents as well. I second the suggestion to write/call the teacher and speak with her directly about the unintended stress.

 

You've gotten some good advice...but I just had to chime in and laugh that the teacher spelled a word wrong on the spelling list.

You've gotta say something, right? I wouldn't want my kids to memorize an incorrect spelling on purpose! :laughing:

 

You would think it would be /10 regardless of how many they get correct since the others are listed as "bonus". So if they had all ten correct and then two bonus it would be 12/10, If they missed two but got two correct then is would still be 10/10. Bonus is supposed to be extra, not counted as part of the grade.

 

Connor & Maddie have just started their spelling words and have like 6 regular words and if they get the correct on the pre-test then they have "challenge" words. Their spelling words this week were/are at, sat, cat, an, man, ran and the challenge words are no, will, mom and dad.

I would definitely call and see how she is grading them on the bonus because I wouldn't think they should be included as part of the test grade- 10/10 + 2 bonus etc. Not making it out of 15 total.

 

Those are hard words for 1st graders. My girls just have ten spelling words each week. No bonus. I would have two girls stressing over those kind of words.

 

Yes, those bonus words do seem a bit much for 1st graders. And, I also agree that she needs to grade it differently. I would definitely shoot out a quick email and explain how each child is reacting differently to them. I would also gently correct her spelling mistake. You don't want the teacher getting angry at you and then ultimately taking it out on your child. Not that she would, just saying, I would hate to think there may be a possibility of that.

 

:lol: she seems to be a bit fuzzy on both spelling and math :blink:

 

I would also email her and at least ask her to grade it out of 10, so the child who struggled with the bonus words didn't feel like they hadn't done well! I think it's funny that she misspelled her bonus word........ :laughing:

 

It should not count against them if they choose not to do the extra or get them wrong. Yes it may seem "fuzzy" but so is 110% but people still say it! lol

 

First grade was our toughest year in spelling. The kids had over 100 words each week. Their teachers wouldn't pare the list down, and though the spelling program that the school was using at the time said that the more difficult words were only to be worked on in class and not tested, the first grade teachers tested them all. There were also a few challenge words each week for the more advanced kids.

Fifty of the words were the theme of the week, starting with short "a" one week, then short "e" the next, etc. etc. Those were easy. Twenty words were "-tion" words (they started working on those in September, but didn't start being tested on them until Oct. or Nov.). Twenty words were "R-controlled vowel" words. Ten words were commonly-used words -- "would", "very" etc. Challenge words were often content-related, and included things like "camouflage", "mammal", "Thanksgiving", "Pilgrims", "Christmas", and I even recall "photosynthesis" being on the list once.

Some of the -tion words were easy ("station", "motion", "locomotion") but some were unfamiliar and/or very difficult for the kids ("accommodation", "coordination", "interruption"). The kids were good at sounding stuff out, but always struggled to remember which words had double letters and which did not. I still recall discussing the Latin roots of "interruption" with the kids in an attempt to help them remember to double the "r". In first grade.

Their second grade teacher implemented the program correctly, so in second grade they did not have to memorize the more difficult words, just work on them at home.

And fwiw, though my kids aced their spelling tests in elementary school and can still spell "psychosomatic" (a second-grade challenge word), they are now in 7th grade and spelling is the weakest part of their writing, and was throughout elementary school as well. I wish that the teachers had focused on words they were misspelling in their writing instead of words that they never used. Nothing like a fifth-grader who can spell "photosynthesis" but spells "almost" with an "a" ("almoast").

 

I 2nd the talking to her...you can also bring it up again at conference time.
When you can sit with her face to face and have thier work right there in front of you to show her.

 

Thanks for all the feedback. We have conferences tomorrow, so I will bring it up when we go over spelling. I go in to parent help on Thursdays and I couldn't resist telling her that "lusterous" was really "lustrous." I mean, honestly, if the teacher can't spell it, how important is it to learn in 1st grade?

As a PP mentioned, I would much rather focus on words they are actually using in their writing. Like: their, there, would, could, etc. One of my boys still spells very phonetically, but he can spell "flustered!" Last week he was so FLUSTERED that I only had him learn 1 of the bonus words. I told him they were extra anyways and I didn't care how she marked the score, I knew what it meant. He was much happier. The other twin learned them all, but it was easy for him.