Kindergarten Spelling Tests

[happymom]

It's super weird. I feel like he does pretty well, he got 9/10 on his first test, 8/10 on the second, 10/10 on the third...and then he's taking this test today. I was wrong in my initial post, today is his forth test, not his third.

We study our butts off though, and he has a crazy good memory. But this is DEFINITELY memorizing, there are too many crazy rules in our language to even begin to explain why some of these are spelled the way they are. Whistle and thumb both have silent letters -- which he has acknowledged doesn't make any sense.

[Annalee]

It's definitely hard to understand and hard to help him with his homework. I can't even follow the directions, it scares me for what's in store when he gets older.

I'm really lucky to have a kid who wants to do well and wants to learn and can easily stay on task and will sit on his own and practice his spelling and is always reading, wherever we go.

But these spelling words are really quite discouraging.

The teachers here hate it as well because common core doesn't allow them to personalize with each child. If the child struggles, he just gets left behind because there is no room to wait for him....it is a fast paced education now and I do not like it at all.

[Poptarts22]

This was me... I now have a Navy daughter with 2 bachelor degrees ( one was earned before she joined), One child started her own company & a son that runs a major business. I did ok because all speak at least 3 languages also and I did it as a single mom

Awesome job,Mom! You can be sure your kids are humbled by the effort you put into educating them!

[happymom]

Props to all the homeschooling moms!

[LK5kids]

What the ???? I taught kindergarten and we did not have spelling tests! Those look like 3rd grade words or higher! My daughter teaches 2nd. I'm going to see what she thinks of these words!

My kids did learn to read and we had 75 sight words that most of the children learned to read. Words like stop, can, up, down, in, out, cat, dog, the, mom, dad, you, see, do, I, to, etc. Don't you first have to be able to read the words to spell them? That's so bizarre!

[CalCare]

Idk. I really hate this shift to academic push down. This stuff isn't developmentally appropriate. This is what we are taught year after year in ECE classes, and then when in the classroom, they don't apply the theories they drilled into us for years. It makes no sense. Well, it does. It's because no actual teachers or ECE pros created or had part in the core curriculum development. Very frustrating. I bet if you meet with the teacher, they will put him in a different group. The teacher probably finds all of this just as problematic as you do - stressing out five year olds!?

[CalCare]

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/01/the-new-preschool-is-crushing-kids/419139/

New article on academics in ECE including Kindergarten. Sad state of affairs.

[CalCare]

Well the article is actually a year old, I double checked! But same thing still going on

[Ariana]

This makes me so sad for children. Why? Why does he need this at 5 . I agree the teacher likely hates this too BUT this is why this school has such a “great” reputation. Most parents are dolts that think if my kid can spell thermometer at 5 they will become rich astronauts. Meanwhile most of the leading billionaires and visionaries of our time went to Waldorf school where kids don’t learn to read until 7 and the focus is not on academics at all.

My eldest didn’t do spelling tests until grade 1 and they were core high frequency words like there, here, though. She is in grade 3 now and there are no spelling tests except for French but she does everything at school, it does not come home as homework or practice.

How much power do you have as a parent? Here it is generally up to us if we want our kid to do homework or not. It sounds like he wants to do well though so maybe there is not much you can do.

[Pepperth]

Wow, my son is in 2nd grade and hasn't had the word thermometer yet. I actually really like what his teacher does this year. She teaches a spelling rule and has practice words, but my son doesn't have a list of words to study. He doesn't actually know what will be on the test that week, just that he needs to learn the spelling rule. The spelling test will have 10 words that follow that rule and then 2 words that they do know ahead of time that don't follow the rule. Its really improved his instinct on how to spell words.

[trytobearunner34]

My 2 cents

16 year veteran elementary school teacher and principal here. The list you have provided is not developmentally appropriate nor does it align with the common core standards. What is likely occurring is a desire to provide what appears to be a rigorous curriculum but in actuality does nothing to benefit the foundation kindergarten should provide for future learning.

[Mad_Pistachio]

first of all, I had to look up thimble in Google translate. I'm way older than 5, and I use it, and I had no clue what it was.
second, I'm a rebel because I'd probable say "screw that" and send my kid unprepared and let her flunk all that BS. what are they really going to do? yeah, I'd need to coach her to not give a crap. or, if I had a chance, I'd keep her home, sending a note that she has a 103 fever. because screw that. and I'm a rebel.
we had a spelling test, 49 words ("one," "red," "this," and so on. the longest was probably "orange"). she spelled 48 correctly, messing up "that," I think.
and I am infuriated for both of you.

[happymom]

So

I talked to his teacher. Apparently they are working on consonant digraphs -- hence all of the TH and WH words and credit is given as long as the child attempts the full words.

I don't know though, my child had one letter wrong and was not given credit for the words that he missed....I didn't want to sound like a crazy complaining mom who needs my child to do perfect on his spelling tests, so I let it go.

I am interested to get this test returned home today though, graded.