English Spelling

Date:  Feb 11, 2014

I don’t know how the MOE curriculum is in terms of giving spelling to the kids.

I think this is going according to teacher’s own preference.  Even teachers in the same school has different standards too.

Here is Jay Jay’s P2 spelling list from Pei Tong Primary School.

After I read the list, I found it OK because this week theme is mostly past tense and so on.  And they also learn large, larger and largest.

So, I think the strategies is to teach the students to write good English sentences thru Spelling.

Spelling is usually on Wednesday, and the list is given only on the previous Friday.  You get the weekend to practise it.

And sometimes, the teacher will just say the first 2-3 words and expect the students to write down the whole sentence.  This is like memorising the whole sentence.  Only at the end, she will speak out the full sentence.  I guess this is all right, as it really force you to remember the structure of the sentence.

This is week #2 list.  This week is all about present tense.

So, you notice that #6 is “The train travels through the tunnel.” here.

Check out Week #3 where you have “The bullet train travels through the tunnel”.  

I am guessing that may be a lot students got it wrong, so, teacher decided to add in for students to learn the words and structures.

Now, #10 “Silk scarves are more expensive than cotton ones.”  (she has some error)

And the following week they student is tested on “These scarves are more beautiful than the cotton ones."

So, it seems to me that they keep getting the students to familiarise with sentences that they already known and then, modify a bit to become another sentence structure.

So, I checked with some other schools, their kids still have not been given full sentence spelling yet.  So I am guessing this is up to the School’s English department how they going to give spelling.  Their students are still being test on single words.

Last years, towards the end of he term, they started to give 1-2 sentence in their spelling list.

This is another class in P2 in Pei Tong Primary School’s spelling list.

As you can see, it is also very long sentences.  So, I guess I am right to guess that it is Pei Tong Primary School’s English department decision to devise such spelling strategies.  :)

http://ptrespect6.blogspot.sg/2014/01/spelling-list-with-date-corrected.html