Learning at home - English
Reading
The most beneficial thing you can be doing at home is reading with and to your child! At school we read aloud to children in every year group and this is something that we highly recommend for at home too. We have Pie Corbett’s Reading Spine in school which are read to the children by an adult. The link for it is here: https://images.scholastic.co.uk/assets/a/9f/bc/pie-corbett-with-page-no-1393983.pdf Children will know which books they have already had in school. Please don’t read any of the next year group’s books unless your child can keep a secret about what happens in it and doesn’t mind a spoiler!
Children can read whatever interests them. There is no such thing as a book that is too easy, if Year 6 want to read ‘Oi Frog’ or ‘The Gruffalo’ then that is perfectly fine as long as that’s not all they read! Similarly, if a book is challenging but the content is age appropriate, children can just have the book read to them, as long as they also get chance to read a book which will help them to develop their word reading skills.
Below are some useful links which provide recommendations for reading material. https://www.booksfortopics.com/
Magazines, Comics and Newspapers are always popular at school. There are some good recommendations here: https://schoolreadinglist.co.uk/resources/magazines-and-newspapers-for-children-and-teenagers/
Oxford Owl also have a free ebook library which can be found here: https://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/for-home/find-a-book/library-page
Early Reading and Phonics
It is essential that children are hearing and saying the sounds correctly in order for them to develop the skills needed to become readers. Videos which model the correct pronunciation can be found here: https://phonicsinternational.com/hear-the-sounds/
Launching Monday 27th April are online phonics lessons. More information can be found in the link below. If you would like any more information about this, please contact your child’s class teacher or Miss Beddoes. http://www.lsenglishhub.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Letter-to-parents-and-carers-about-online-phonics-lessons-2.pdf
Poetry
We will publish ‘Poem of the Week’ for each year group on the school’s Twitter page. Learning some poems by heart is great for reading fluency and developing memory; plus, it can be really good fun!
Great websites for poetry are:
For great poetry books, have a look at the list that Pie Corbett has put together:
Writing
The best types of writing to do at home is story writing, diary, instructions and/or information text writing. That said, children can and should be encouraged to write about whatever interests them. If they don’t want to write at home, don’t force writing upon them as this can do more harm than good in the long term. If they are writing, allow them at least one draft without correcting every mistake! As adults we tend to write a first draft and come back and edit later or share with a friend/colleague who will check for any mistakes and offer improvements. Children need the same! If children are writing at home, the most important thing to do is ensure that the basics such as capital letters and full stops are used consistently and accurately. If children are in Years 4, 5 and 6 and are using advanced punctuation, https://www.grammar-monster.com/ is a great website to check they are using it accurately!
Every weekday morning at 9.30am Pie Corbett (creator of Talk for Writing) presents on RadioBlogging.net This is a free internet literacy radio show aimed at KS2 that includes language games, creative writing and guest input from famous authors such as Frank Cottrell-Boyce. The programmes are interactive – the children write during the programme and afterwards. All of the shows that have been broadcast are available to listen back to online at RadioBlogging.net https://radioblogging.net/
Jamie Thomas is an accredited Talk for Writing Trainer. He is writing a daily blog with creative ideas for teaching literacy and maths at home. https://tfwconsulting.wixsite.com/jamiethomas/blog/
Talk for Writing consultants have also produced some booklets which can be used at home. The next set of booklets will be released in the coming days. https://mailchi.mp/talk4writing/home-school-booklets
Little and often is best, below is a link with a list of sentence games created by Pie Corbett which children will enjoy playing and are familiar to the warm up games we do in school. http://beamcountyprimaryschool.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Pie_Corbett_sentence_games.pdf
Spelling
Hopefully children in Years 1 to 6 have accessed Spelling Shed by now. Spelling Shed covers the National Curriculum and provides teachers with feedback as to how children are getting on. Depending on how well children are getting on, teachers might assign specific spellings for children to have a go at.
Spellings lists that we use in school for Years 1 – 5 are saved under the ‘Spelling’ section of the school website. Mrs Melia has given spellings for Reception and Year 6 can challenge themselves by picking any list from any year group and making sure they can spell the words on it!
Kinetic Letters
The best thing you can do to support your child’s handwriting is to keep them active and develop their gross and fine motor skills. Physical strength is crucial if children are going to be able to hold a pencil comfortably and write for a sustained period of time. Therefore, playing outside in the garden, riding bikes, playing on swings, climbing monkey bars, skipping etc. will all help and hopefully will help children burn off some energy too! In regards to fine motor skills, they can help with pegging out washing, borrow a shirt from an adult and time how quickly they can fasten the buttons, make daisy chains, thread beads, make loom bands etc. Kinetic Letter strength exercises can be done by anyone of any age!
Websites with more ideas can be found here: http://www.therakids.org/media/pdf/FineMotorActivitiesForHome.pdf https://theimaginationtree.com/40-fine-motor-skills-activities-for-kids/
Children can also develop their physical strength by using the Kinetic Letter positions (Lizard, Stone Lion, Gorilla and Penguin) to complete activities such as reading a book or watching television. They could also see how many push ups they can do in a minute or see how long they can hold a plank position for if they really wanted to challenge themselves.
As well as developing physical strength, children need to be using the correct pencil grip whenever they are writing or colouring. Children can sing the Pencil Pick Up song to help them.
If you have the Kinetic Letter playing cards at home, here is a link with some suggested games you can do with them: https://kineticletters.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Kinetic_Letters_Card_Games_2015.pdf
