Literacy Learning Zone
How you can help your child with writing over the Summer holiday
Writing a diary over the Summer holiday will really help your child`s writing skills. They do not need to write much at all, just one sentence a day (or most days) will keep their writing going. They could bring it into school in September to share with the class. Teachers love to celebrate hard work undertaken during the holidays. Post it notes have been extremely popular in our class this year; little messages left around the house for others is a good way to get them writing at home. When they make a Lego model or a train track, get them to write a post it note saying "please do not break this up" This makes writing purposeful. Ask them to help you write a shopping list or ask them to write you a book. All of these ideas will help to boost their writing skills when they aren`t at school. You could even become pen friends with another child in the class to keep in touch over the holidays. THANK YOU FOR YOUR CONTINUED SUPPORT.
How you can help your child with reading over the Summer holiday
Below are the sounds we have covered in Reception. Knowing these sounds will help your child be ready for Year One. Remember to find them in real words and be a digraph and trigraph spotter. The children love doing this! Lots of children know these sounds really well on their own, but do not always recognise them in a word so please support your child with this over the Summer. Thank you for your continued support.
Below are the sound mats you can print.
Please help your child to know these tricky words by sight. This will really help them as they move into Year One in September. I have attached a document you can print out at home, it is the same one that we sent home previously..
Below are the tricky words to print. If you can do the first sheet have a go at the second sheet if you can read them all, have a go at writing them!
We are loving reading our new books all by ourselves. Each book focuses on initial sounds. We have to use the picture clues to help us.
Have a look on our gallery page to see children sharing big books. We have been focusing on storytelling and story language in class. We have also been reading and re reading favourite stories together. Little Rabbit Foo Foo and Pants are very popular at the moment.
How we teach reading - letter to parents
Handwriting is a skill which affects written communication across the curriculum and therefore should be taught regularly and systematically. We begin with write dance patterns and as the year progresses we move onto letters. We use a cursive script with a lead in and a lead out as this teaches children to join letters and words as a series of flowing movements and patterns. We teach the children the correct posture for handwriting and how to hold a pencil correctly.
Children should understand the importance of clear, neat presentation in order to communicate meaning effectively and develop a fluent, comfortable, legible, joined handwriting style for a range of purposes. During daily sessions, teachers will model and children will practice joining the cursive font and children will learn to have the correct posture and to be consistent with the size and positioning of letters and the spacing of words.
Left handed children
Left handed children will be positioned appropriately and their paper may be slanted slightly. Their pencil can be held further from the point so that their vision of the letters is not blocked as they are writing.