Helping your child at home
Thank you to everyone who came to the curriculum meeting yesterday. If you could not make it please let us know as we will be arranging a morning session very soon for those parents who wish to attend.
For information on how we teach maths using Numicon there is a useful parent’s page on their website.
For more information on the correct pronunciation of phonemes this website is very useful.
Supporting your child’s learning
Don’t forget the Curriculum Evening this Wednesday at 6.30pm!
For ideas for helping your child at home, download some useful leaflets from Early Education entitled ‘Maths is everywhere’ and ‘The road to reading’.
The children takeover!
On Friday, the children in Reception took over ‘Show and Tell’ and did such a fantastic job that we may let them do it every week!
Reception are happy learning together!
Our SEAL Theme is ‘Getting On’. Reception are happy to learn together!
Don’t forget ‘Relax and Read’ every Wednesday!
Buddy’s Workout!
The Reception children took part in a mini aerobic session to raise money for the NSPCC. All the children took part and completed their workout. Please could you send any sponsor money to school by Thursday. Thank you for your support.
Autumn Walk
We had a great time on our Autumn walk !
Learning letters and sounds
This week we’ll begin to learn letters (graphemes) and the sounds they make (phonemes). There are several websites that contain information and activities which you could try at home.
Your child will be taught how to pronounce sounds correctly to make blending easier. Each week, we’ll let you know which sounds we’re learning. This weeks sounds are s, a, t, p.
Sounds should be sustained where possible (e.g. sss, fff, mmm) and where this is not possible, ‘uh’ sounds after consonants should be reduced as far as possible (this means, try to avoid saying ‘buh’ for ‘b’, ‘cuh’ for ‘c’ etc.)
For a demonstration of how to pronounce the phonemes visit the Get Reading Right website and click on free resources.
Remember to practise little and often, and have fun!
We are learning Phonics!
This week we will begin our daily phonics sessions. These are fun sessions involving lots of speaking, listening and games. The children will learn to use their phonic knowledge for reading and writing activities and in their independent play.
Your child will develop an understanding that spoken words are made up of different sounds (phonemes) and they will learn to match these phonemes to letters (graphemes). Phonics is about children knowing how letters link to sounds (graphemes to phonemes), e.g. c as in ‘cat’, ll as in ‘fell’, ee as in ‘sheep’.
This approach has been shown to be a quick and efficient way for most young children to learn to read words on the page, fluently and accurately. We want children to develop this skill so that it becomes automatic.
How you can help?
Play ‘What do we have in here?’
Put some toys or objects in a bag and pull one out at a time. Emphasise the first sound of the toy/object by repeating it – e.g. ‘c c c c – car’, ‘b b b b – box’, ‘ch ch ch ch – chip’.
Learn how to ‘sound-talk’
Find real objects around your home which have three phonemes (sounds) and practise ‘sound talk’ – first just let them listen, then see if they will join in, e.g.
‘I spy a p-e-g – peg’
‘I spy a c-u-p – cup’
‘Where’s your other s-o-ck – sock?’
Remember, the children don’t need to match the written letters with the sounds at this stage.
Have fun!
Don’t forget our ‘Relax and Read’ session on Wednesday.
Every Wednesday morning we will have our ‘Relax and Read‘ session where you can enjoy a spot of relaxation and reading with the children and help them choose their library books.
We hope to see you there.