Homework
Homework
There is an optional Homework Menu below for you to choose activities from. It will be updated it each term to reflect our learning and topics in class.
We are not currently sending home Homework books/folders. If you would like to share your child's work, I'd love to see it! Please email it to me and we can then share and celebrate their wonderful efforts in class during our class show and tell.
Reading
Our school has had a successful first year using Little Wandle (Letters and Sounds Revised) as our systematic synthetic phonics (SSP) programme to teach early reading and spelling. It is based on the original Letters and Sounds, but is fully resourced and sets expectations of progression that are aspirational yet achievable. We will work through the entire Little Wandle Programme until your child can successfully utilise their phonic knowledge and blending skills to read fluently. Children need to learn to read as quickly as reasonably possible, so they can move from learning to read, to reading to learn, giving them access to the treasure house of reading.
Children in Year 1 will take part in Reading Practice Sessions. We will be using brand-new books published by HarperCollins for Little Wandle.
Reading Teaching Sessions are:
? Timetabled 3 times a week
? Taught by a trained teacher / teaching assistant
? Taught in small groups of 5/6 children
The children read the same book three times a week. The first time we work on decoding (sounding out) the words, the second time we work on prosody, which is reading with expression and fluency (which words shall I stress, which words run into each other) - and the third time we look at comprehension. We read the book three times in school because we want to develop fluency. The more children see words, the more they begin to read them automatically without having to sound them out.
Phonics in Year 1
As usual, children in Year 1 will continue to have daily phonics lessons. They will be (usually) taught 4 new grapheme phoneme correspondences (GPCs) per week, plus a review lesson on a Friday. Knowing a GPC means being able to match a phoneme (sound) to a grapheme (written representation) and vice versa. The children will also learn a series of ‘tricky words’. Tricky words are those words which can be sounded out but they haven't yet learn the sounds to be able to do so. We will build into the timetable some weeks for the children to consolidate what has been taught so far. We assess your child every six weeks to check progress. Any child who needs extra support will have keep-up sessions planned for them.
Supporting phonics at home
For further information on how to support your child with phonics, please visit the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds website: https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/resources/for-parents/ You will find a grapheme information sheet to help you with formation and pronunciation. It is really important that you pronounce the sounds correctly at home if you are supporting your child. The videos are on the website for you to refer to and if you are unsure, please don't hesitate to talk to me. Emails, calls or a quick chat at the end of the day are all welcome.
Supporting your child with reading at home
Although your child will be taught to read at school, you can have a huge impact on their reading journey by continuing their practice at home. There will be three types of reading book that your child will bring home:
? A reading practice book
? A sharing book
? An online reading practice book (available on Oxford Owl)
Reading practice books are decodable books have been closely matched to your child’s current reading level. When listening to them read the book please remember to give them lots of praise – celebrate their success and where necessary their perseverance!
Tips:
? If they can’t read a word, allow them time to use their sounds to build it up, where necessary help them, tell them the GPC they need to decode the word.
? Re-read sentences with the children to develop rhythm and intonation (notice how 'a fish' is more of an 'uh fish')
? After they have finished, talk about the book together.
Sharing books
In order to encourage your child to become a lifelong reader, it is important that they learn to read for pleasure. The sharing book is a book they have chosen for you to enjoy together. Please remember that you shouldn’t expect your child to read this alone. Read it to or with them. Discuss the pictures, enjoy the story, predict what might happen next, use different voices for the characters, explore the facts in a nonfiction book. The main thing is that you have fun!
Sharing books will be changed on Friday from our library. All children have their own library card they can sign books in and out with. Your child will not be allowed to take a new book home until they have brought their signed out book back to our library.
Reading Records
We will continue to use the Reading Records to note your child’s assigned books. It is important to us that the record is easy for families to complete so please leave a short comment in the record to let us know your child has read the books. We are always interested to hear how they got on.
We would strongly encourage that children are heard read at home every day and read to every night. Being able to read fluently and having good comprehension skills will ensure that children make the best possible progress as they continue on their journeys through school. Developing their vocabulary through reading will also accelerate your child's progress. We have introduced a class reading challenge to promote a love of reading both in school and at home. Your child will move up on our reading chart every time they read, including the 3 reads that will take place in our reading teaching sessions and any extra reads at home. We hope this will encourage a passion to read and a love of books.
There are also books available to read on Oxford Owl - books will be added each week closely matching what we have been focussing on in school. If you would like to read a book more than once, please do not click on the finished book option after reading a book as you will not be able to access it again. Rereading texts is important for fluency and for developing expression and pace, so please encourage your child to read their books, either real or virtual, more than once and ideally 4 times. This may seem like a lot, but rereading books is a National Curriculum objective, and it will have a significant impact on your child's progress.
We look forward to catching up with you about your child’s reading progress in our parent’s evenings. Please do not hesitate to talk to Miss Jones if you have any questions about your child’s reading in the meantime.
Spelling
We are using a new phonics scheme called Little Wandle. They advocate teaching not testing, so we will not be sending home spellings to learn. Instead, the focus will be on high-quality systematic phonics teaching. Should you wish to look at spellings at home, the Common Exception Words for Years 1 is a list of words from the National Curriculum that all KS1 pupils need to be able to read and spell by the time they leave Year 1.
Maths
If you would like to focus on maths at home. I would encourage you to focus on number bonds, knowing the days/months of the week/year, ordering numbers to 50, money and telling the time on an analogue clock. Initially, please focus on:
- Counting to 20 forwards and backwards.
- Reading and writing numbers to 20 in numerals and in words ( e.g. 5 five)
- Ordering and writing the days of the week and months of the year
- Counting in 2s,5s &10s
- Time: telling time to the hour and half past
- Money: looking at different coins and notes and recognising the value
