Supporting Your Child’s Learning at Home

Reading

Research shows that the most important thing you can do to help your child achieve at school is read with them. Little and often is the key!

There are three things that your child needs to learn to do:

1) Decode words
2) Understand what they have read
3) Enjoy it!

Reading with your child should be enjoyable. The more fun you have, the more likely you are to instill a love of reading. Encourage discussion with your child when reading with them. They will probably ask you some interesting questions, so don’t be afraid to stop reading and explore these further.

Here are some tips for engaging reluctant readers:

– Listen to audiobooks to get them interested in stories
– Show them that you love reading too. Visit the library together and choose some books for you and for them.
– Go for something that you know will engage your child. Perhaps they are really into wildlife, so a non-fiction book may be a good place to start.
– Ensure your child can easily access books in your home. Have shelves at child height and books in each room.

This PDF from Springboard has many more ideas for how to make reading as enjoyable as possible.

The Oxford Owl website has 250 free, tablet-friendly e-books for you to access at home. 

You can access the website here.

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Spelling

Spelling logs will continue to go home containing a weekly spelling list. Please support your child in learning these words in preparation for their weekly spelling test. There are many methods to use at home: the basic strategies of ‘sounding out’ using phonics and look, cover, write, check work for many learners. However, you may also wish to try some of these approaches:

• For tricky words, think about shape and size of the word.
• Break words into syllables, e.g. re-mem-ber.
• Use a mnemonic, e.g. necessary: one collar; two sleeves.
• Say words as they sound/in a funny way, e.g. Wed-nes-day.
• Encourage the children to find words within words, e.g. parliament: I AM parliament.
• Sing it!

The following apps can also be used to liven up learning spellings:

• Squeebles Spelling;
• Spell with Pip;
• Phonics Play;
• Mr Thorne;
• Pop words;
• Word Bingo.