How can you help at home
Reading
Our lovely library is open between 3.10 pm and 3.30 pm every day for children in Early Years and Key Stage 1 to change reading books. We would like children to have their books changed twice a week.
In Key Stage 2 we focus on the children’s understanding of what they read. Here are some really good questions to help when reading at home:
Our reading schemes:
In Nursery and Reception children take home a weekly sharing book, these books range from traditional stories such as The Gingerbread Man to modern classics such as The Gruffalo. The children choose a sharing book that they are interested in exploring at home.
In Reception we use mainly use Phonics Bug and Fun with Phonics as our main reading schemes for individual reading at home. We also have books from My First Phonics, Rigby Star, Comics for Phonics, Big Cat and the Lighthouse series. We are very lucky to have all new books this year which have been chosen to complement our phonics teaching and to inspire our early readers.
In KS1 children take home individual reading books and shared reading books. You can change these after school in the school library. KS1 use the Phonics Bug, Floppy’s Phonics and Oxford Reading Tree schemes.
In KS2 children take home individual reading books. We use a wide range of reading schemes, including; Oxford Tree Tops and Trackers, Ginn Pocket reading and free reading books.
Writing and Spelling
Our spelling scheme focuses on the importance of being able to read a word and understand its meaning before writing it. Therefore reading and puting spelling words into sentences is really important. Here are some fun tips to help your child with their spellings:
The literacy homework we send home is always linked to what the children are learning, your support at home is essential. Encouraging your child to write for real life purposes will support their writing, for example, a thank you letter, a shopping list, Birthday cards, post-it notes and ‘to do’ lists.
If you would like to support your child with their handwriting then you can use the Letter-join online resource (please ask your child’s teacher for the school log in details). Log in to: Letter-join
Phonics
Phonics is the stepping stone from which reading and writing can be developed. In Nursery and Reception the children are introduced to Phonics and then throughout their school life at Pear Tree Mead their phonics skills are developed. We teach the children to blend phonemes to read and to segment to write, this involves looking at the sounds in words.
Here are some useful websites:
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Speaking and Listening
Speaking and listening forms a large part of the school curriculum and crosses into different subjects. To help at home you could:
- Show your child how to put their ideas into a sentence by modelling it for them
- Correct incorrect words that they use, such as; ain’t, anythink, we was, gonna, etc.
- Correct tenses, such as; throwed should be threw, goed should be went, etc.
- Practice your child’s show and tell with them so that they know what they would like to say
Other Useful Websites
