Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Elementary School Spelling Pretests

I think that a child who didn't want to work too hard might do poorly on the pretest to avoid getting harder words. My ds used to go to a school that used Words Their Way, where they pretested the class at the beginning of the school year and had spelling groups after that. Each week, the words would follow a pattern that the kids would learn. After the early elementary years, some kids were finished with the program, so they worked on vocabulary instead with WordMasters,

We never saw pretests, but I would think a teacher could give one once at the beginning of the year and base a child's placement on that, then go forward with an idea of their level, adjusting a bit as needed (not pretests every week, surely?)

We have seen the gamut from the various teachers we've had -- those who differentiated from the get-go, and others who refused to differentiate at all. This is the first year that DS is getting spelling pre-tests (3rd grade).

We're still early in the year, so I'm not sure everything is ironed out. The teacher told DH and I that the differentiation would be offered to everyone, but DS told me that he's the only one getting the advanced list even though there are others who score 100% on the pre-test.

If DS scores 100% on the pre-test, he gets a list that includes at least a few (up to several) words he doesn't already know how to spell. Also, instead of having to complete a spelling worksheet, DS has to look up and write the definition and part of speech for each word.

I could TOTALLY see kids purposely making mistakes on the pre-test to avoid the extra work. Actually, I could even see parents telling their kids not to get 100%, because looking up and writing out the definitions is quite time-consuming. We (including DS) are happy with the increase in challenge.

DS6's 2nd grade class has been getting pretests with 10 regular words and 2 challenge words. The regular words at this point are super easy, but DS6 isn't such a great speller, so this works out fine. (From reading these boards, he might be one of only a few gifted kids who can't spell well!) I'm guessing that if the kids get all the words plus the challenge words too, they'll be switched to a more challenging list.