Spelling Words

So spelling tests start this week for my little girl. She has a field trip this Friday so their tests will be done early (Thursday) so I went over the words with her last night and this evening the dh gave her the test. She got every one right, we are so proud of her! So far the class has only been given sight word tests, words they had to recognize on sight (not sound out but just know), not necessarily know how to spell though so this is all new. It's been so long since I was in elementary school I'm sure we did it the same way, I just don't remember. The words are up, to, it, my, for, big, will, at, can, and. We also had student run conferences this past week where we went in with her and she had a booklet and she went through all the stuff she's learned so far, all by herself. She went through a bunch of sight words and some other stuff and then read us a book. She was concentrating so hard we had to remind her not to stress out several times. Typical only child syndrome, all kinds of stress on her shoulders only. There were parents, I'm sure, that didn't like the set up but I think it worked really well for where the dd is at in her learning. Other kids in her class probably didn't do as well, there are at least 3 that are not emotionally mature enough to even remotely get through the process. I'm sure the teacher modified the program for those kids but still, I'm very happy that our girl was exactly where she's supposed to be. We don't want brilliant or stupid, we want totally normal average. If she wants to be exceptional at something someday so be it but for now we're thrilled with middle of the road.