Reception 2019/20
Curriculum News
Our first trip
Next Wednesday 2nd October we are going on our first trip to the fire station in Swalwell. Please see letter attached
Phonics, Reading & EExat learning tracker
Thank you to all parents who attended the Curriculum meeting focused on reading and phonics on Tuesday night. Please see attached handout from the night
letter about phonics for parents.doc
There is lots of information about reading and phonics on The Read Write Inc page too which is the scheme we follow
https://www.ruthmiskin.com/en/find-out-more/parents/
As a little recap... Initially all children learn the single sounds, they then learn how to blend these single sounds in words(short 3 letter words such as cat, mat, mad, sad). Firstly by hearing the teacher or adult sound out/fred talk the word for them (assisted blending) eg m-a-t then telling them the word mat so they can hear how words sound when they are broken into sounds. The children copy saying the words like this for a short period. They then have a go telling the adult the word from the sounds they can hear. This then progresses further to them reading the sounds then blending the sounds together themselves to say the whole word.
If your child is struggling to hear the word even though they can say all the sounds in the word but then they say something random it is helpful to go back a step and repeat the sounds back to them they have just read can ask them what the word is. Often the children know the sounds but the independence in blending isn't there just yet but hearing someone else say the sounds for them they can then hear the word.
Following this digraphs (2 letter sounds) and trigraphs are taught. sh, th, ch, qu , ng,nk. Then they start set 2 sounds igh ow oo oo ee ay. This then leads on to ou or ar ir oy air. All the time practising blending these sounds in words.
At this stage we would not teach the alphabet or the "letter names" as they do not help children to read - these are taught much later on when children become confident in blending sounds together to make words.
The sound cards we use can be bought from Amazon along with a parents guide. I believe they are about £2 a pack . They are made by Ruth Miskin and come with green words for the children to practise blending too.
Please also see the document below for the pictures which accompany the sounds for set 1 and set 2. Blending can be practised by getting your child either to make the words with magnetic letters on the fridge or in the bath or by writing them down or by doing it orally. See the document below for some word lists you can challenge your children to practise blending and spelling this half term !!
Finally the children are expected to know some words by sight - red words we call them.. the words you cannot sound out. Please see below for the red words we are working on too. The children are expected to be able to read the red words and then to be able to write them too.
green words to practise blending.pdf
Some phonics games to practise sounds and blending
Also, see below for a list of suggested stories for storytime Whether they are read to or have a go reading themselves - just having the opportunity to hear and absorb quality texts has huge impact on the children. As if they have not got a good bank of stories in their heads already to draw from how can they be expected to eventually write and create their own?!
143_Stories for storytime.docx
EEXAT
We have moved away from our paper based learning journals and gone online using the EExat system. All observations and assessments during the year will be uploaded onto their secure page. Each child has their own secure section on the tracker where they have their own online learning journal. There is a facility on there to share a child's learning journal with parents but as we are only starting out we haven't enabled this yet. However we do very much want parents to be involved in children's learning journeys during Reception- you should have received your own individual login with instructions of how to register as a parent. Via this facility you can upload your own photos/ note of successes your child has had outside of school - a little like our Home Proud books but online. We still like to share these achievements as a class and can do so via the smartboard. This can then link directly into our assessments and truly help us to develop a really clear picture of your child's abilities both inside and outside of school.
EExAT_Help_Guide_for_Parents.pdf
We will be sharing online journals at parents evening so you can see how much we have learned so far! In the meanwhile keep checking our twitter page for information about day to day activities in class.
