Really? It will all shake out and your child will be able to spell.

A lot of differences it appears. Our child gets 10 new words each week with the quiz on Friday. He is assigned to a spelling group with 8 other kids that go to another first grade teacher for the spelling lesson. His entire class is divided up this way but we have yet to figure out (have a meeting to discuss with teacher) how they pretest for group division was made. During the spelling lesson the kids write down the 10 words from a list, once while looking at the list. Then the teacher reads the words out loud and talks briefly about the catergory of words (beginning with th, ending with e etc). The kids have very little further instruction on the words and are require to take the quiz on Friday. Seeing on the board other parents talking about writing and spelling in middle school and higher grades in ES I can see why kids are having problems. It is not well taught and yet required.

There are no spelling groups, but there is some differentiation. Basic readers may have patterned words like tap, map, lap, while more advanced readers will get strap, tapping, clapped. Any words the child misses on the weekly spelling test are carried over to the next week. If the child gets all words correct, he or she gets 5 new words. so each child may have a different list of words.

I don't know how it's done with the new Curriculum 2.0, but the way it was done two years ago at our ES is this. The kids got a pretest. Depending on how they did, they would be assigned a list of spelling words. So, it was a week by week assignment. I only remember there being two groups, but I could be wrong about that.

DD's first grade class doesn't have spelling groups. Kids get individualized spelling words.

I've never heard of groups for spelling.

Depends on the school, the grade, and possibly even the teacher. Definitely talk with the teacher.

Curious if other parents know how MCPS assigns spelling groups? Are kids assessed like they are for reading and math? Are they fluid groups that change through the year? What have other parents found succesful for teaching kids spelling that aren't quite getting it? DS does well in every other topic - is reading at 2nd grade level but when it comes to spelling nope not getting it. We have a meeting with his teacher to discuss but before we head in there I was curious about other's experiences.