Why I am against spelling tests.

byhookorbycrook

Average class: 5 know all the spellings for the test already
10 children in the class may get 18 to 20 out of 20 with a bit of effort.
10 others might get 15-18 with a greater effort.
5 will spend all week slogging and half of Thurs night and never get more than 10-20 or even less.
Oh, and let's not forget the child that worries who doesn't even want to come in for the test on Fridays

What's that you say?That's life and not everyone can be brilliant at spelling no more than football or art?
I agree totally. BUT 20/20 in a spelling test does not mean you are a good speller.

How many times have you seen a child write the word they had for spelling last week incorrectly in their free writing?

We have gone the Brendan Culligan way,where every child works on spellings,but there is lots of visual work, spelling games, excercises etc and no "test" as we traditionally had. "Core-words" ie those words we use most in our writing are studied. They are used in dictation and in context. Each child has a notebook of words that they need to focus on and as the child gets a word right, it is highlighted as being known. Each child thus works at their own level and on what they themselves need to know.

Now they are actually learning HOW to learn to spell as well as learning to spell.A teacher handing out a list of words to be learnt for the week is expecting parents to teach their child how to spell and is not teaching spelling.

Getting down off my hobby horse now.:D

Ayla

I completely agree, but as I mentioned in the other thread, why should this philosophy be restricted to spelling tests? What about vocabulary (Irish or English), or geography, or maths, or any objective subject where there is supposedly a right & wrong answer.

Any test will by definition marginalize those students who do & don't know the material, so why shouldn't all learning be done by doing & not regurgitating?

byhookorbycrook

Yes, to active learning.Class sizes of 30+ don't help though.

Ayla

Again, I agree. But if you abolish spelling tests, instead installing a more active learning process (which is fantastic, btw!) then why should it be ok to test other subjects? If you can actively teach (and the students can actively learn) spelling in a class with 30+ students, then the same must be possible with other subjects.

I personally believe that any testing is useless and a by-product of an educational system that has to cater to the average student. Take, for example, all the leaving cert students who are currently "craming" for their exams. They are - quite literally - memorizing facts, figures and equations that someone has decided is important, but that they have not yet seen a reason for. If, instead, they had actively learned this info, there would be no need to cram, nor would there be a need to test because they can demonstrate their knowledge in a practical way.

Don't get me wrong, OP, I am agreeing with your practices completely. I just would like to see it occurring in other subjects too.

byhookorbycrook

Leaving cert is a test of rote learning.Always has been. We have spent too many years in our education system assessing (rote) learning and not assessement for learning.

Like throwing back the one beached starfish of thousands,abolishing spelling tests makes a small difference,but it's a start.

the_syco

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

Like throwing back the one beached starfish of thousands,abolishing spelling tests makes a small difference,but it's a start.

If they don't no how to spell write, not even the spell check on MS Word will bee able two help them. And if they don't learn early, when will they?

byhookorbycrook

They are learning HOW to learn to spell, using the words they need and the most common writing words. Giving a list at the start of a week to be tested on the Fri does not help spelling.

the_syco

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

They are learning HOW to learn to spell, using the words they need and the most common writing words. Giving a list at the start of a week to be tested on the Fri does not help spelling.

Sorry, but I don't understand what you mean at all, so I'm going to bow out of this thread.

sheehyskeff

Now they are actually learning HOW to learn to spell as well as learning to spell.A teacher handing out a list of words to be learnt for the week is expecting parents to teach their child how to spell and is not teaching spelling.

Agree completely. If we could get rid of any kind of teaching of words in isolation - word bags, boards with HFW - I'd be happy! It just doesn't work, particularily for children who struggle with reading.

Marcus_Crassus

the_syco wrote: »

If they don't no how to spell write, not even the spell check on MS Word will bee able two help them. And if they don't learn early, when will they?

???

You're right, spell-check is useless, it can't tell you when you have a typo or when you use the wrong type of word.

Toto Wolfcastle

Marcus_Crassus wrote: »

???

You're right, spell-check is useless, it can't tell you when you have a typo or when you use the wrong type of word.

I think that was the point of his post.

E.T.

the_syco wrote: »

If they don't no how to spell write, not even the spell check on MS Word will bee able two help them. And if they don't learn early, when will they?

I'll be lazy and repost exactly what I wrote in another thread:

"There are better ways of getting kids to learn spellings than making them face a test. I get the kids in my class to learn their spellings by writing them in sentences regularly as we learn them. The traditional test tells very little - the more able kids are going to get most of them right, the average kids will get average marks, and the kids who aren't able for spellings are going to have their confidence knocked. Getting them all to put them in sentences gives meaning to the spellings and the children can all write the sentences at their own level, so they're benefitting more from the work."

Children can learn spellings without learning lists off by heart. This is going to play a part in some form, but the most effective way to learn is by learning how to spell phonetically. If children learn the main sounds of the English language (not just the 26 letters of the alphabet), then they'll be able to spell the majority of words.

The Dolch list, which is a list of the most commonly used words, consists of a lot of words that can't be sounded out phonetically, so different methods need to be used here.

I have to say that there are some children who do benefit from learning words by sight, often in isolation. One child with dyslexia comes to mind - they found basic phonics very difficult, but learned sight words much more easily. Goes to show that many different methods are needed for teaching spelling and reading.

Ayla

Again, E.T., I agree with you, your theories & your methods here, but surely the same could be said for children who struggle with maths, languages, geography, science...

How do you approach those subjects?

dambarude

From what I can see some parents would deem a teacher who doesn't give spelling tests every week to be poor. I recently heard a relative giving out that a sub teacher doesn't correct the weekly test personally (the children swapped their copies round).

So how do you get round parents that place much store in things a teacher doesn't rate at all?

Personally I'm undecided on spelling tests, I have little enough experience with them yet. I never had trouble with them myself in primary school (I was one of the lucky ones), but I can see how they can cause a lot of strain.

fasttalkerchat

Fair point but they will pick up some basic study skills that will be useful later.

byhookorbycrook

We had a meeting where Brendan spoke and we also gave info out in the newsletter too.

The -syco, my point is many schools don't actually teach children to spell, but send home lists asking the parents to do it!!

Daisy M

My older two would have usually got 100% correct in their spelling tests every week and did not have to put much effort into learning them, however if I asked them the same spellings a few days later they would get the majority wrong, a lot of parents I know have said the same, so to me learning these lists of spellings seems pointless. Younger daughter is dyslexic and spellings are a nightmare the amount of effort she has to put in to get a few right is unbelievable. When she was assessed the educational psycologist (a man with many years experience) said he couldnt understand why schools do these spellings as most kids have them forgotten as soon as tests are over.