The children are progressing quickly with their phonics learning and reading. Alongside blending to read, the children also need to segment words to spell. Children often find this harder and lack confidence in their ability to write.
In Reception, the children take part in shared writing activities where they can ‘have a go’ on whiteboards with the support of adults. We then encourage independent writing in all the areas of provision. This includes writing a label for their model, writing a shopping list in the role-play shop or writing a letter to a friend. We value all the children’s attempts at writing and model writing (and making mistakes) to them.
You can help at home by:
- Providing plenty of different types of pens and pencils and encouraging your child to use a correct grip
- Encouraging them to use the school’s handwriting style and to use lower case letters; we teach that a capital letter is required for the first letter in a name and at the beginning of a sentence
- Spelling is harder than reading words – praise, don’t criticise. Little whiteboards and pens are a good way for children to try out spellings and practise their handwriting
- Remember that at this stage children’s phonetic attempts are valued. They will learn the correct spellings of words later. We want the children to become confident writers by ‘having a go’ and using their phonetic knowledge independently.
- To be able to write, children need to be well co-ordinated through their whole body, not just their hands and fingers. Games that help co-ordination include throwing balls at a target, under-arm and over-arm, and bouncing balls – also skipping on the spot, throwing a Frisbee, picking up pebbles from the beach and throwing them into the sea.
Have fun!