Author: Mrs Wood

As you know, at the end of the year we’ll be assessing the children in 13 areas of the curriculum. One of these areas is writing. The early learning goal is:

Children use their phonic knowledge to write words in ways which match their spoken sounds. They also write some irregular common words. They write simple sentences which can be read by themselves and others. Some words are spelled correctly and others are phonetically plausible.

The children are all confident in recognising their letter sounds and now need to develop confidence in ‘having a go’ at writing. Remember, it doesn’t matter if words aren’t always spelt correctly as long as the children are recording the sounds they hear.

‘Tricky’ words like I, the, said, he, me need to be learnt and practised.

Please could you practise a simple sentence every day at home with your child. Bring their writing to school for us to celebrate.

If you have any questions, please ask.

This week, we begin phase 4 of our phonics programme. 

During this phase, your child will continue to practise previously learned graphemes and phonemes and learn how to read and write words with four phonemes. These are called CVCC words (consonant, vowel, consonant, consonant) and include words such as, tent, damp, toast and chimp.  Although ‘toast’ has five letters, oa work together to make the long vowel sound o, pronounced ‘oh’; similarly, c and h in ‘chimp’ work together to make the phoneme ch. For example, in the word ‘toast’, t = consonant, oa = vowel, s = consonant, t = consonant.

Your child will also learn to read and write CCVC words such as swim, plum, sport, cream and spoon. For example, in the word ‘cream’, c = consonant, r = consonant, ea = vowel, m = consonant.

In addition, they will be learning more tricky words and continuing to read and write sentences. There are no new phonemes taught in this phase.

Tricky words in phase 4:

• said
• so
• do
• have
• like
• some
• come
• were
• there
• little
• one
• when
• out
• what

Ways you can support your child at home

Practise reading and spelling some CVCC and CCVC words but continue to play around with CVC words. Children like reading and spelling words that they have previously worked with as this makes them feel successful. Make up captions and phrases for your child to read and write, for example, a silver star, clear the pond, crunch crisps. Write some simple sentences and leave them around the house for your child to find and read.

Please look at the homework pages on our website for more sentences to read and write with your child.

 

 

 

 

‘Tricky words’ are those words which children cannot use their phonic knowledge to blend.

Once you’ve introduced tricky words and practised them, reinforce the words regularly when sharing picture books and reading together. 

When helping your child to learn to spell the tricky words you may decide to use the ‘Look, Cover, Write and Check’ method. This involves first looking at the word and identifying which part is tricky, covering the word, writing it and then checking the spelling. Remember: if phonics can’t work, it’s not possible to sound out all the sounds, so you might want to start using the letter names.  

Aim to make learning tricky words a fun and enjoyable activity, perhaps by writing the tricky words in sand, paint, shaving foam or glitter. Once your child has practised a few times in a less structured way, give them the opportunity to practise writing the tricky word on coloured paper with pencil colours or felt tips. The only way these words can be read and spelt correctly is by learning them and having plenty of practice.

The tricky words children learn in Reception are:

• the
• to
• I
• no
• go
• into
• he
• she
• we
• me
• be
• was
• you
• they
• all
• are
• my
• her
• said
• have
• like
• so
• do
• some
• come
• were
• there
• little
• one
• when
• out
• what

 

Don’t forget! Our first class assembly is on Thursday at 2.40pm.

See you there!