Is anyone familiar with this spelling program? My 7 year old brought home a note that this is now being used at his school. It involves sorting words into categories.

Is this part of Common Core, or just something our school district has chosen? I'm interested to see how it works out.

Common core is not a curriculum, only a set of standrds with no specific way to teach them. So, must be the district, but I haven't heard of it.

Our elementary school uses it. Overall, we really liked it, but like anything it depends upon how it's implemented. It's basically a leveled spelling program p; the kids take a pretest and are then grouped. We had weekly lists with varied activities (usually a fair amount of choice) during the week to prepare, some in class and some homework.

For my DD, it was only so-so, but primarily because the highest grouping the teacher made was not challenging for her. My DS had a different teacher (and two classmates of similar spelling ability) and the teacher went out of her way to extend the program, using Greek and Latin roots and vocabulary; they ended up writing quite a bit (this was third grade).

Overall, we liked it, but I think it is a lot if initial work/start-up preparation for the teacher, and they need to be open-minded and flexible in their groupings (such as allowing kids to move up or down during the year, etc).

Hmmm - we were not told the name of our program but DS has "word sort" homework and a test on it - it is their spelling program. DS is pretty low in spelling (dysgraphic) so he is on pictures... sorts pictures into long a, short a sounds. Each week is different sound. As bad as he is at spelling he has no trouble with this and doesn't do the practice at home (like he is suppose to ) and still gets 100 on the test. They are doing all sorts of stuff to be in line with the common core at his school so I assume it's part of it....

Au contraire, the common core does contain some specifics (and a concern is that this may grow in the future as CCSS is still being developed). While there are indeed lists of standards, there are also tasks and books and their recommended placement by grade level / band. Despite having "standards" in its name, which some may call a misnomer, it contains so much more.

As a practical matter, most often items aligned to common core are numbered as to which standard(s) they are aligned with. This facilitates parents looking into the common core to see which standard(s) any classroom or homework activity may be fulfilling.

In addition to the associations between Common Core & SAT discussed on another thread, Common Core has associations with Pearson the British multinational publishing and education company. Many articles discuss that future standardized tests will assess knowledge of specific common core content. Knowledge in a vast array of other literature and topics will count for naught.

Many have read about the common core, few have actually read the common core. Some have found it a daunting task. Interested individuals can read the current CCSS here:
Common core link - http://www.corestandards.org/the-standards
Common core English Language Arts link - http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy
Citation:
Authors: National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, Council of Chief State School Officers
Title: Common Core State Standards (insert specific content area if you are using only one)
Publisher: National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, Council of Chief State School Officers, Washington D.C.
Copyright Date: 2010

Meanwhile, growing concerns about the future increase in specificity of CCSS are fueled by pearson posts including contests such as this one which asks teachers to submit lessons for evaluation in a contest seeking "best lessons for teaching what it means to be an active, engaged citizen." ("National Civics Education Contest for Teachers Announced", Sept 18, 2013, http://www.pearsoned.com/)

Emphasis added, showing CCSS is still underdevelopment. Committing to CCSS while CCSS is still being written is a bit like signing a blank check which will be filled out by the other party at a later time.

Can you provide a quote or specific link on this? I don't recall seeing any required curriculum when I read through the common core standards.

There was a lot of discussion of the various and confusing usages of "common core" in another thread recently - I can't vouch for the correctness of any of it, but I suspect Dude's post here:
http://giftedissues.davidsongifted....t_do_you_think_of_potent.html#Post163354
may be pertinent.

I've backtracked through my link list and see that this where I first began to understand Common Core as having a specific curriculum component... there is a "placement" of certain academic content, for example "Grapes of Wrath", as shown at CCSS links including http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy and in the Appendices linked from that page.

Unfortunately, you've conflated the links provided, an error which I had also made when first beginning to both read CCSS and also read about Common Core.
Please see post
http://giftedissues.davidsongifted....t_do_you_think_of_potent.html#Post163364
which contains the same link provided earlier in this thread.

What I see is "Grapes of Wrath" in this section
"Texts Illustrating the Complexity, Quality, & Range of Student Reading 6-12"

But, we have gone overlong in sidetracking from JenT's original question regarding "Words Their Way."

Indeed. Recall that each organization is but one piece in the puzzle. A standardized test such as SAT constructing questions based on CCSS content is what would put teeth into an emphasis on learning specified content.

Indeed. My points to her and other parents would be
1) looking for the CCSS alignment numbers when they are curious about where an assignment or exercise may fit, or what purpose(s) and standard(s) it may be intended to fulfill,
2) being alert that CCSS is still under development,
3) understanding that future standardized tests may draw from CCSS-recommended content,
4) remaining aware of who the various interrelated organizations are.

As future advocacy for gifted students may be taking place in the context of CCSS, parents may want to be familiar with these things so they may say definitively their child has met particular standards, or that they prefer their child be allowed to use other selected literature, assignments, exercises, spelling lists, etc, to demonstrate knowledge and understanding which fulfills particular standards.

I think curriculum means different thinks to different people. We have a "national curriculum" which specifies what is learnt when but it doesn't specify what tools to use to get there.

This may not be cause for panic that the CCSS is a moving target - I think this quote merits some clarification. To date, CCSS covers only Math and English/Language Arts. The "further development of the CCSS" referred to in the quote is the addition of standards for Social Studies, not the increasing specificity of curriculum for the Math and English standards.

I apologize if that was not made clear in my post. Thank you for clarifying. Please know that I have not suggested cause for "panic" as you say, but rather being alert that the CCSS is not complete, and that as such new items are being added. Currently Social Sciences are being added.

However the CCSS is without statement of limitation as to what may be added once the school children of the USA are subject to it, and once the standardized tests which determine "college and career readiness" are constructed based on its content.

I will reiterate:

DD8 has been using it for 3 years now and I was happy to hear that ds6's school will be using it this year too. DD is on the 5th grade sorts and ds is using the 1st grade sorts but will move up to 2nd next time his teacher assigns words.
Neither of mine are stellar spellers so I wonder if that says something about the rigor of the curriculum being off.

Well, that's interesting... our school always links any curriculum changes to Common Core. This includes some of their ridiculous changes like requiring essays in PE. "All classes require writing now, because of Common Core."...is what they tell parents. Not good for my son who does not like to write. Give the poor kid a break from writing in PE!!

My son is not a good speller, but he is very good at sorting the words into categories. I wonder if this will help his spelling.

It's an interesting angle, my poor speller/writer might do well with some sort of sorting approach. Particularly if it involved rules and categories and logic.

Definitely worth reading directly from the standards to compare what they are saying versus what the school is saying.

My DS's class used this. I can see how it could be a good way to teach for kids who have difficulty spelling and understanding meanings of words because the sorting does help them see the relationship of the various words with the same prefix, etc.

I did not care for it because much of the practice was simply rewriting the words and/or sorting them then "reflecting" on the sort. After you rewrote stuff or wrote the words in a few different ways, then you could do something interesting with them, like a comic, etc. We asked to modify the assignement which was fine with the teacher. Then, the next week they eliminated it from the curriculum.

I think it could be useful at the right level and my overal complaint with it was that my DS did not need to do the word study to know the words because he already knew them. He could give you the definition and he got 90-100 on spelling tests even though he did not do the word study.

On another note, this reflecting thing is a new concept that seems to be mixed up with common core as they are now having to do it with math as well. Again, I am not completely against it, but it should be leveled appropriately. Once my DS said, "I thought this problem was really easy because I already know all the math." I helped him better articulate that by asking a few questions, like what math - which he expanded on and told him he probably should drop the really.