Reception Class News

It’s Party Time

On Thursday 15 December it will be the Christmas party for Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 after lunch.  The children must come to school in their school uniform but are welcome to bring some party clothes to change into for the party.

Please ensure that the clothes are easy for the children to put on themselves and that they are in a named carrier bag.  Please remember that they will be playing party games and dancing so make sure that the shoes that they bring are sensible. 

Thank you.

This week’s phonemes and ‘Tricky Words’

The last phonemes in Phase 2 are f, l, b, h. This week we will be assessing the children to see who is ready for the next phase. Children should know all the sounds (phonemes) of the letters learnt so far and be able to blend (read) and segment (spell) a word like s-a-t. We call these ‘cvc’ (consonant, vowel, consonant) words.

Don’t worry if your child is not able to blend and segment yet. We will continue to practise these phonemes and skills and remember it does take some children a little longer to be able to do this.

This week, the ‘tricky words’ to learn are I, no, go. A fun way to learn these is to play ‘pairs’. Write each word out twice and take  turns to turn over two words at a time trying to find a matching pair.

Don’t worry if they get some wrong! These are hard to remember – they need plenty of practice.

Tricky Words

This week, your child will start to bring some ‘Tricky Words’ home to learn. These are words that have have unusual or untaught phonemes and are ‘tricky’ to decode. Show your child the word and try to blend it as usual, discussing the letters that are ‘tricky’. For example, in the word ‘go’ the last letter does not represent the same sound as in the word dog. Keep looking at the words, use them in a sentence and point them out in their reading book. This week, the tricky words are ‘the‘ and ‘to‘.

Still measuring!

Measuring!

This week Reception have been busy measuring everything in the classroom!

This week’s phonemes

This week, the new phonemes are g, o, c and k. The children will be taught that c and k together  make the same sound. They will look at words with ck and identify that this usually occurs at the end of a word.

When learning a digraph (two letters making one sound), the children will be encouraged to join-up the two letters when they write.

This week, the high frequency word to learn is ‘and‘.

Super Sculptures!

It is not only children who are involved in learning.  On Tuesday, all of the teaching staff were involved in a Art workshop and some super sculptures were produced.

Check out the new member of our school community, Sebastian.

Mrs Burke, Mrs Weekes, Mrs Maver and Miss Hewson worked together to sculpt using newspaper and modrock and this is the result.

Look out for him in the middle building.

Our class photo will be in the Evening Post on Tuesday!

Photos of the class will be in a special supplement in the Yorkshire Evening Post on Tuesday 08 November.

This week’s phonemes

This week, your child will be learning the letters s, a, t, p, i, n and the sounds they make.

The children will be taught some of the terminology we use. So that you don’t feel left out, here are a few definitions:

• A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound in a word.
• A grapheme is the letter, or letters, representing a phoneme, such as t, ai, igh, ch.
• A digraph is two letters, making one sound; a consonant digraph contains two consonants (sh, ck, th), whilst a vowel digraph contains at least one vowel (ai, ee, ar, oy).
• A trigraph is three letters making one sound, like igh, dge.
• Blending is recognising the letter sounds in a written word (for example c-u-p), and merging or synthesising them in the order in which they are written to pronounce the word ‘cup’ (this is essential during the reading process).
• Segmenting is the opposite of blending; it involves identifying the individual sounds in a spoken word (eg ‘him’ = h – i – m) and writing down letters for each sound to form the word (segmenting supports the writing process).
• A c-v-c word is a consonant, vowel, consonant word such as c-a-t and also sh-o-p.

Encourage your child to read and write cvc words, especially using letters and sounds that you know we’ve covered in school – this week, lots of words can be blended and segmented using s, a, t, p, i, n.

Phonics – How to say the different phonemes

It is very important when children are beginning to read and spell that the phonemes (sounds) are said correctly.

This is a list of the phonemes in the order that they are taught.

(Don’t forget to avoid saying an ‘uh’ sound after some letter sounds – this might be how you remember the sounds, but it’s not helpful to spell a word like ‘dog’ with each letter pronounced ‘duh-o-guh’ – instead, try to just say the very initial, pure sound: ‘d-o-g’.)

1. s Weave your hand in an s shape, like a snake, and say ssssss
2. a Wiggle fingers above elbow as if ants are crawling on you and say a, a, a
3. t Turn your head from side to side as if watching tennis and say t, t, t
4. i Pretend to be a mouse by wriggling your fingers at the end of your nose and squeak i, i, i
5. p Pretend to puff out candles on a cake and say p, p, p
6. n Make a noise as if you are a plane.  Hold your arms out and say nnnnnn
7. e Pretend to tap an egg on the side of a pan and crack it into the pan, saying eh, eh, eh
8. h Hold your hand in front of your mouth and pant as if you are out of breath and say h, h, h
9. r Pretend to be a puppy holding a piece of rag. Shake your head from side to side and say rrrrrr
10. m Rub your tummy as if seeing tasty food and say mmmmmm
11. d Beat your hands up and down as if playing a drum and say d, d, d
12. g Spiral your hand down as if water is going down the drain and say g, g, g
13. o Pretend to turn a light switch on and off and say o, o, o
14. c k Raise your hands and snap your fingers as if playing castanets and say ck, ck, ck
15. u Pretend you are putting up an umbrella and say u, u, u
16. l Pretend to lick a lollipop and say lllllll
17. f Let hands gently come together as if toy fish deflating, and say fffff
18. b Pretend to hit a ball with a bat and say b, b, b
19. j Pretend to wobble on a plate and say j, j, j
20. w Blow on to your open hand as if you are the wind and say wh, wh, wh
21. v Pretend to be holding the steering wheel of a van and say vvvvvv
22. z Put your arms out at your sides and pretend to be a bee saying zzzzzz
23. y Pretend to be eating a yogurt and say y, y, y
24. x Pretend to take an x-ray of someone  and say ks, ks, ks
25. ch Move arms at sides as if you are a train and say ch, ch, ch
26. sh Place index finger over lips and say sh, sh, sh
27. th th Pretend to be naughty clowns and stick out tongue a little for the th and further for the th sound (this and thumb)
28. qu Make a duck’s beak with your hands and say qu, qu, qu
29. ng Imagine you are a weightlifter and pretend to lift a heavy weight above your head saying ng…
30. ai Cup hand over ear and say ai, ai, ai
31. ee or Put your hands on your head as if ears on a donkey and say eeyore, eeyore
32. oa Bring your hand over your mouth as if you have done something wrong and say oh!
33. ie Stand to attention and salute, saying  ie ie
34. oo oo Move head back and forth as if it is the cuckoo in a cuckoo clock saying u, oo,u, oo (little and long oo.)
35. ou Pretend your finger is a needle and prick thumb saying ou, ou, ou
36. oi Cup hands around mouth and shout to another boat saying oi, oi ship ahoy!
37. ue Point to people around you and say you, you, you
38. er Roll hands over each other like a mixer and say er,er,er
39. ar Open mouth wide and say ah. Flap hands as if a seal and say ar, ar, ar