Handwriting

Good handwriting is crucial to assist fluency and writing stamina. At this end we are going to be working really hard on handwriting across the school this term. Ensuring children sit correctly and hold their pencil correctly is very important. On our class pages we will share our focus for each term so that you can support your children at home accordingly. 

Our current focus is where to correctly join letters.

Reading

We are so happy that we can begin to share reading books with our children again. Please encourage your child to record their reading in their record book. There are also two book reviews at the back of the record books which your children will be asked to complete at some point during the year. We have talked about how to use the reading record books as a place to record the book your child is reading, to write down any recommendations, to record new vocabulary and write down the meaning of the word, or phrase, and to write book reviews. There are also two help sheets glued in their books to help you as an adult when you discuss a book with them. At this stage, your child is aiming to read fluently with expression. They also need to check that they comprehend the text, so that is why discussing it is so important. Within the text, there should be are a few words they do not know , otherwise the book is probably too easy for them.

Ideally, your child is reading daily. This can include their book, instructions, newspapers, magazines etc.

We will provide a reading text, or text with comprehension questions, for your child and we might then refer to it the following week in lessons. There may be questions to answer, which you can discuss or record, as you wish.

Spelling

At the start of the autumn term, we test the children on the Year 1, 2 ,3 and 4 spelling rules to see which ones we need to revisit. These rules are very important and are in many words which we all use on a daily basis, so the children really need to know them and how to apply them. These skills will enable the children to extend their vocabulary as they will be able to both read and write more words. We do explain to the children that although the rules help with most words, it is the fact that there are always exceptions, and these need to be learnt as well. 

We have a record of how the children did in these assessments at the start of term and we will re-assess at the end of term 1.

Please remember to practise the words set in a variety of fun ways and also look over the year 3/4 and 5/6 statutory spelling lists which are also above.