Quote:
Originally Posted by laulob
Both of my children's schools do this now for everyone! They take a pretest on Monday. The kids that get all the words right get a separate, more difficult list of words for the week -why practice spelling words you already know how to spell!? Then on Friday the teachers give two different tests to the two different groups. It works out well because every child has a chance to be a "Super Speller" each week.
|
My son's teacher also gives a pretest and then a higher level of words for those who scored 100 on it. For my son, though, his spelling abilities far exceeds any 2nd grade list, so he chooses his own words based on his interests and that's what he studies. However his grade is on the 2nd grade words since that is what he is graded against.
He has never missed a single word on any of his spelling tests for the advanced words either though. He chooses words (looking at past lists) like eclipse, hurricane, or debris when interested in weather or Mediterranean, Tanzania, Wyoming and yen when interested in geography. Or he just goes through the dictionary and picks words he's not familiar with like alternative, hypnotize, advertisement and exhaust.
Thankfully he is still interested in learning how to spell new words. Otherwise he would be one who would not want to write the 2nd grade words 5 times etc and it would have been a silly exercise to have him complete anyway.
Have to add that his teacher uses an online spelling program so that all she has to do is type in the lists and they take their test online so that she does not have to personally administer 3 different tests each week.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
