Spelling Tests in Kindergarten

[almostamom]

Does (or did) your child take spelling tests in kindergarten?

I'm just curious. I haven't taught kindergarten in more than 10 years, but I was surprised when spelling tests started coming home a few weeks ago.

Linda

[EllasMum]

I just had DD's kindergarten parent-teacher interview today, and she told me they do "kid words" - meaning, the teacher says a word and the kids write it down, essentially sounding it out, and then the teacher writes the real version of the word and the kids see how they did. It's not a test, though.

[JElaineB]

DS started spelling tests in first grade.

[crl]

None in K, ds has them in first.

Catherine

[MelissaTC]

We started in first grade as well.

[bubbaray]

IIRC, the kids in the English Kindy did to spelling tests of sight words. DD#1 is in French Immersion and there were no spelling tests until this year (Grade 1).

[infomama]

First grade here..once a week.

[noodle]

The school where DS attended kindergarten started spelling tests in k. (The whole k program was, in my opinion, inappropriate -- developmentally and otherwise.)
DD's k has no spelling tests.

[SnuggleBuggles]

Nope, our k was totally play based-no worksheets, no tests. They had circle time and they played games, wrote in their journals and stuff like that. No report cards; 2 assessments/ year.

Beth

[justlearning]

Yes and there were 15-20 words a week, if I recall correctly, but they practiced them in class and the teacher sounded out the words to make it easier. She also referred to the tests as "spelling games" to make it sound less anxiety-provoking (which seemed silly to me because they were structured completely as a test, not a game at all!).

[egoldber]

No, and I think that is developmentally inappropriate.

[MaiseyDog]

DD1 is in K in they do have spelling test. The had several that covered the colors (they had learned songs on how to spell the colors) and then the others have been on their sight words (is, the, how, can, etc). The tests have covered 5-7 words.

[Cam&Clay]

I voted Yes, but I didn't agree with it. Spelling tests are way inappropriate developmentally for kids that age.

[s7714]

I voted no because they don't bring home weekly spelling lists or anything like that. They are tested later on in the year to see if they know how to spell many of the high frequency words they've been learning though. Words like I, like, see, my and some of the colors.

We didn't start seeing weekly spelling lists/tests until 1st grade.

[artvandalay]

No spelling tests, but he does get quizzed on sight words. He doesn't have to spell them, but just know what they are/read them. He just brought home a test and got 51 out of 51 right :yay:

[justlearning]

Now interested in this subject, I just pulled out the paperwork I saved from DS' kindergarten.

It turns out that he had 6 words a week, not as many as I said earlier.

On his newsletter in the middle of March, it listed all the words they had learned up that that point. They were the following:

me, do, and, go, at, on, a, it, is, she, can, see, run, the, in, so, no, now, man, ten, tan, tin, ton, bed, top, he, you, will we, an, my, up, last, not us, am, good, time, like, have, blue, chance, charge, little, are, ago, old, bad, red, of, be, but, this, all, out, you, your, may, into, him, today, look, did, six, boy, book, by, had, over, make, must, street, say, hand, come, hill, ring, live, live, let, late, mother, three, bag, beg, big, bog, bug, hot, hat, land, cold, child, ice, play, see, sea, bird, cool, earth, feed, fur, oil, green, paint, pool, teeth, tooth, and work.

DS always got 100% on his tests (without studying at home) so I never considered that they were developmentally inappropriate. The words were chosen to reinforce what they were learning with their Spalding phonograms curriculum. And the teacher sounded them out referring to the phonograms.

BTW, this was also a half-day kindergarten (but not play-based, obviously).

So I'm curious to hear more from those of you who feel that it's bad to have spelling words in K. Would you say that these same types of words listed above would be appropriate for 1st, just not for K? Would you say that 1st grade words should be harder than these, so then kids just have to go from having no spelling words in K to having hard words in 1st?

I'd love to hear your perspectives.

[erosenst]

None til first grade here. But I'm shocked by how difficult some of the first grade words are!

[niccig]

So I'm curious to hear more from those of you who feel that it's bad to have spelling words in K. Would you say that these same types of words listed above would be appropriate for 1st, just not for K? Would you say that 1st grade words should be harder than these, so then kids just have to go from having no spelling words in K to having hard words in 1st?

I'd love to hear your perspectives.

My issue with it is for kids who developmentally aren't ready for this kind of work. Not all kids in K are reading, it's a range and for some children reading doesn't click until grade 1. Your child was fine with the spelling tests, but how about the child that hasn't mastered the sight words or phonics and gets 0 out of 10 on every single test. That's demoralizing and goes a long way to making learning not fun.

[pinkmomagain]

There are no tests, let alone spelling tests, in kindy.

[niccig]

There are no tests, let alone spelling tests, in kindy.

Same with us. Assessments so we know where DS is, but no 5/10 written in pen on a piece of paper.

[almostamom]

My issue with it is for kids who developmentally aren't ready for this kind of work. Not all kids in K are reading, it's a range and for some children reading doesn't click until grade 1. Your child was fine with the spelling tests, but how about the child that hasn't mastered the sight words or phonics and gets 0 out of 10 on every single test. That's demoralizing and goes a long way to making learning not fun.

There are definitely a few children in DS' class who are ready for spelling lists and are having great success. DS is not one of them - at least not in the manner in which they are administered. Honestly, I'm guessing at how they are administered, but based on what DS is bringing home - a paper where he is able to write the beginning and most of the ending sounds of words and they are all marked wrong (but with a positive note on them praising his effort) - I think it's very much a typical spelling test where the teacher says the word a few times and moves on to the next. We do our own version of spelling tests at home, but I give DS each phoneme separately. He routinely gets those all correct. His mistakes this week were substituting a 'c' for a 'k'. We do it for reading and speech reasons; I'm not worried about the scores on his tests. IMO, he's right where he should be for a kindergartner who is learning to read. His writing consists of mostly consonants and as long as he's getting some of the sounds down, he's where he should be. I just think that children are being pushed to do more, do it faster, do it earlier, etc. Ten years ago, learning the alphabet was kindergarten curriculum. If a child was reading by the end of the year that was great, but it wasn't the norm. I know the K teachers that I taught with did not give spelling lists. However, I haven't taught in 6 years, and I'm curious to see what the norm in now.

Thanks for all of your responses. FWIW, I love DS' teacher. She does have high expectations and, for the most part, I think it's great. She's also very understanding that the children are at different levels (two of them are reading chapter books while at least 2 didn't know the alphabet when they started the year).

Linda

[egoldber]

My issue with it is for kids who developmentally aren't ready for this kind of work.

Exactly. Not only are many kids not reading, but many do no yet have the handwriting skills either.


So I'm curious to hear more from those of you who feel that it's bad to have spelling words in K. Would you say that these same types of words listed above would be appropriate for 1st, just not for K? Would you say that 1st grade words should be harder than these, so then kids just have to go from having no spelling words in K to having hard words in 1st?

I actually don't even recall older DD having "real" spelling tests until second grade. In first grade they had "word study", where they studied word families each week, and they had "assessments" but it was not a test per se. I actually never saw these come home. Also, they had kids grouped by ability for these activities. So some kids got harder words than others, depending on their individual readiness.

And despite my hatred for her third grade teacher last year :o I think the way he did spelling was great. Each kid had their own individual list. They all took a pre-test. Only words you missed on the pre-test went onto your spelling list and the rest of the words came from a challenge list. If you got all the words right on the pre-test, then your whole spelling list was challenge words.