Supporting your child in Class 1

This page is for links that will help you support your child with their learning and development.

Further links will be added so keep checking!

Spring term 2021-Guide to supporting your child with Read Write Inc Storybooks

These books are designed to help your child to make rapid progress and to develop their confidence in reading. Each storybook works best if it is read 3 times; we do this in school in guided reading groups.

Here is how to help your child with the book they bring home, which will be one slightly below the level we are teaching in school.

Read the 'Story Introduction' to your child; feel free to enliven this to engage and enthuse your child in wanting to read! Any imaginative dramatic interpretation will help too!

Your child will point to each sound to read the 'Speed Sounds' chart; noticing the circled focus sounds, then they will use their 'Fred talk' to read the story green words followed by the red 'tricky' words. They should then read the text for the first time with accurate decoding.

On the next read talk a lot about the story and model reading it yourself, as well as your child, and then ask the 'Questions to talk about'.

The third time your child reads the book their reading will become more fluent as many of the words will start to become 'speed words'; and these can be practised on the final page of the book.

I will hold a Zoom meeting to explain and demonstrate all of this soon

Writing

There are two parts to establishing writing; transcription skills and composition skills.

A child can develop as a competent writer before they have the physical, phonetic and grammatical skills through rich experiences of hearing and telling stories, exposure to imaginative worlds and ambitious vocabulary. Year 6 seems a long way off but what a child can produce as they finish their primary schooling starts now at the beginning!

Writing needs a 'purpose' and an 'audience'; if your child sees you writing cards and letters, shopping lists, drawing and labelling plans, maybe even your own diary they will have a good role model for writing.

To master transcription skills children need to develop physically; to have strong shoulders, arms, hands and fingers. Climbing, sweeping, cooking with graters, peelers, kneading dough are all home activities to help develop the control and coordination needed for effective pencil control.

Actual hours in the cockpit will lead to a child flying with their handwriting; nothing beats lots of drawing, colouring and practising of letter formation! 

Below are some helpful videos about 'Talk 4 Writing' 'Tales Toolkit' and 'Early Writing Activites'

Reading
Learning to read is the most important thing your child will learn at our school. Everything else depends on it, so we put as much energy as we possibly can into making sure that every single child learns to read as quickly as possible.
We want your child to love reading – and to want to read for themselves. This is why we put our efforts into making sure they develop a love of books as well as simply learning to read.

We teach reading in a variety of ways in class 1. Here is a brief outline...

1. Daily phonics/Read, write, inc sessions.

2. Books and stories linked to challenges and areas of learning.

3. Regular reading at home with a reading level matched book chosen by the child.

4. Weekly reading sessions using texts closely linked to the pupils phonics skills.

5. Daily whole class/small group story time with a focus on enjoyment of stories and comprehension.

6. The use of Alphablocks to support blending of newly acquired phonic knowledge

How will my child be taught to read?
We start by teaching phonics using the Read/Write Inc program to the children in the Reception class. This means that they learn how to ‘read’ the speed sounds, blend and segment the sounds in words, and how those sounds can be written down.
The children also practise reading (and spelling) what we call ‘tricky words’, such as ‘the,’ ‘my,’ ‘said’ and ‘where’.
The children practise their reading with books that match the phonics and the ‘tricky words’ they know. They start thinking that they can read and this does wonders for their confidence.
The teachers read to the children, too, so the children get to know all sorts of stories, poetry and information books. They learn many more words this way and it also helps their writing.

Nursery Rhymes

Nursery rhymes are important for young children because they help develop an ear for our language. Both rhyme and rhythm help kids hear the sounds and syllables in words, which helps kids learn to read!