As a first grade teacher in another system, I sent home "spelling" words--but it was essentially a phonics lesson: cat;hat;mat; etc. with a few Dolch sight words thrown in.

Well, they could go home if there was a "list" of words, but there is no prescribed list to send. I don't know what else to say.

So just because you teach these words and put them in context with other lessons somehow they can't come home? So some schools in FCPS send home spelling lists, the kids alphabetize them and learn how to spell, and other schools have what I would consider "vocabulary" where words are taught as part of another lesson or in sorts at school which don't come home? I still don't see why they can't come home. I remember spelling where we learnt vocab words for different subjects and they still came home. Why does FCPS have such a discrepancy from school to school? The tour I went on of the school only showed the rooms and said that all FCPS schools teach from the same curriculum. But these are not the same curriculums at all. My child has no idea how to alphabetize and gets much less practice writing these words in a sentence. I have no idea what words are being learnt in school which probably doesn't amount to much since there are close to 30 in a class. The working parents and ESOL parents have no clue what is going on at the schools. How can we fix this so parents are better educated and can help their children with spelling?

Anonymous wrote:16:58 The question is, do you actually send home words to practice at home? If not, I think it's a very different program. Many parents actually want to see the words their children are learning.

No. Other than the list of "frequently used words", there is no prescribed list of words. That would be isolating spelling, which we don't do. It is incorporated within all subjects. It's not isolated in the POS or in the Progress Report.

16:58 The question is, do you actually send home words to practice at home? If not, I think it's a very different program. Many parents actually want to see the words their children are learning.

Standard 6 is where the "spelling" portion would be on the progress report, but as you can see, it's not just a spelling grade:

Edits for usage and mechanics in own writing.

Under that standard, the most specific indicators I can find for fourth grade come under benchmark 4.8.g:

Use the correct spelling of frequently used words, including common homonyms/homophones, (e.g.,
threw/through).

Apply spelling generalizations.

Apply knowledge of letter sound relationships, word patterns.

Anonymous wrote:Word study apparently is not standard in FCPS if you have a teacher like 18:50. Sigh.

18:50 here. Word study is part of it. I never said it wasn't.

The other odd thing is that teachers don't even have to print this stuff out anymore. They can just put their word study list on blackboard.

Does FCPS really want parents interviewing school after school asking about all of these differences?

Word study apparently is not standard in FCPS if you have a teacher like 18:50. Sigh.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wait, not nightly spelling lists, put words in ABC order, write a sentence/story with each word, test on Friday? No challenge words?

Yes, this is what we had in first grade. Word sort on Monday, practice spelling, word hunt - find the words in magazines, etc. Spelling test every Friday.

Same here. Started in 1st grade, continued in 2nd (but the weekly assignments were more complex in 2nd grade). A good friend had her 2nd grader in private last year, and our kids had virtually the same homework. I thought this was standard for 1st/2nd grade - "Word Study."

It's hard enough on a working parent like myself to keep up with what is going on at school, but I can only imagine how much harder it must be for a working parent who doesn't speak English. At least with spelling lists, the parent can see how the words are supposed to be properly spelled. With the only spelling coming home in the form of some draft writing assignments, that parent would not be able to help the child enough on a weekly basis and would be spending much more time trying to translate a young student's work to even see if anything is spelled wrong.

Anonymous wrote:We had spelling homeowrk starting in 1st grade.

Us too

Do you send the writing home every week then so parents can review their child's spelling? Last year I got a chunk of draft writing once a quarter, so I wasn't even getting writing back on a weekly basis. Is this just an FCPS phenomenon not to have weekly spelling lists? Sure, you can observe writing to see how a child spells, but school also used to have lists. I actually heard about weekly lists, but the words didn't come home.