Reception Reading and Handwriting Meeting2020-2021

READING AND WRITING MEETING FOR RECEPTION PARENTS

As the children have now settled into life at Our Lady’s Bishop Eton, we would normally invite you to a Reading and Writing meeting.

Unfortunately, due to COVID restrictions, we are unable to meet in our usual manner so we have created this presentation to share

information about this exciting next step on your child’s learning journey.

This week the children have started Phonics. We have daily sessions of phonics to promote your child’s understanding of sounds and words. Next week your child will come home with their first reading books. In order to support your child we would like to share with you some of the strategies that we use to help your child develop a love of reading.

You may also be aware that we have introduced the children to a pre cursive style to handwriting. We will also share some strategies to support your child at their own individual stages of the writing journey.

Areas of Learning:• Personal, Social and Emotional

development.• Communication and Language• Physical Development• Literacy• Mathematics• Understanding the World• Expressive Arts and Design

Within the Early Years framework, there are 7 Areas of Learning. This

presentation will focus specifically on how we develop Communication and

Language skills as well as Literacy through our daily learning.

Communication and Language

This area of learning is broken into 3 strands:- Listening and Attention - Understanding- Speaking

Our learning environment is constantly reviewed,

enhanced and adapted to enable multiple

opportunities for children to develop skills in all of these

areas.

Literacy

This area is broken down into two strands:1. Reading2. Writing

Developing firm foundations in reading and writing is essential. As well as a daily literacy lesson, our

Continuous Provision is planned to provide opportunities for Reading and

Writing throughout the day.

• Developing language skills

• Taking turns in conversation.

• Learning to listen.

• Enjoy looking at books and telling stories.

• Retelling stories, putting events in the correct order.

• Tell the story from the pictures.

• Focus on details and notice similarities and differences.

Pre - reading skills

There are many skills required in order to be a reader. Your child will have been doing many of these already. We will continue to further develop these skills this year.

Your children are already readers!

Print is all around us!

Your children will have already started to recognise familiar texts around them.

Celebrating these initial reading skills is important in developing confidence.

Learning to read is fun!We work hard to promote reading as fun! We encourage children to look after their books, to share their favourite stories and to enjoy their journey in learning to become independent readers.

Reading doesn’t always have to be stories! The more text types we expose the children to, the more they value the advantages of being able to read.

Learning through games and puzzles

Making reading fun instead of a chore will only help your child. Games and activities that rely on memory recall, recognition of letters and sounds and scanning pictures and texts will also help to develop the broader reading skills.

Each letter has a ‘sound’

Playing Alphabet Bingo

Here are some more examples of how reading can be developed……..

Magnetic Letters

Having fun and becoming part of the story

Role play

Who’s that crossing my

bridge?

Sharing the story together

Listening to story tapes

Sharing a story with a willing audience!

Following the story through the pictures. Making predictions and discussing the characters.

Understanding the printed word.

• Beginner readers need to recognise the difference between pictures and words on a page.

• Beginner readers need to learn that the print on the page actually means something.

• Words name things, they tell us stories, or give us information.

Learning Phonics

We follow a programme called ‘Letters and Sounds’

We follow a programme called Letters and Sounds. We also use the songs from ‘Jolly Phonics’ which you may or may not be familiar with!

Phonics

• Follow DFES letters and sounds programme• Use Jolly Phonics songs to support• 4 whole class lessons per week• Small group phonic based activities in other areas

Our lessons and weeks are structured as follows….

Letters and Sounds Programme

• Nursery - Phase 1: Auditory discriminations, music making, nursery rhymes

• Reception - Phase 2, 3 and 4• Year 1 – (Revisit Phase 4) Year 1 Phonics • Year 2 – Year 2 Phonics

Your child may well have followed some of the Phase 1 Letters and Sounds Programme. They may also be familiar with some of the Jolly Phonics songs. This year we will focus on Phase 2, 3 and 4. Your child will continue in Year 1 and Year 2 with Phonics.

Phase 2

• Introduce 4 sounds per week (phonemes)• Articulation is vital!• Tricky words• Model letter formation• Fun interactive sessions!

Every week, we will introduce 4 new sounds.

Articulation is vital! It is important that we are using the same sounds as the children as this will be essential when we move onto blending. The children will be well rehearsed with these sounds so please encourage them to share their learning with you! Allow them to correct you if needed!

New sounds will be communicated with parents weekly on the newsletter . In addition, weekly home learning activities will support children in embedding their new knowledge.

Blending phonemes – individual sounds

s a tWe encourage children to use the correct terminology from the very beginning. A phoneme is the name given to an individual sound. Phoneme - The smallest unit of sound. sat - These are all examples of phonemes –

letters which make one sound. - When we blend – we join individual sounds

together to make a word – s-a-t

Blending digraphs - 2 letters 1 sound

chipA Digraph - A grapheme containing two letters that makes just one sound (phoneme)ch - is a diagraphi - phoneme p – phonemeWhen we blend the sounds together we make ‘ch-i-p’ - chip.A Trigraph - A grapheme containing three letters (e.g. igh) that makes just one sound (phoneme)

Segmenting to spell

In phonics, we blend to read and we segment to spell.

Blending is combining the sounds to create a word while segmenting to spell relies on hearing and recognising the different sounds individually in order to spell / sound out a word.

Our phonics lessons are very hands on. We rely on lots of short activities and practical, games based tasks in order to move through the letters and sounds a suitable pace for progress in reading and writing. There is a lot of repetition to enable children to practise and apply what they know.

Children need lots of opportunities to practise these letters and words!

Even in their outdoor play!

Opportunities to practise and develop phonics happens all day, every day in every area of our classroom.

Using fun computer programmes

Having fun in the sand!

Using differenttypes of resources to make words

Wooden letters in the sand

Time to develop a love and enjoyment of reading.At the same time as introducing phonics, we will also begin to introduce our home reading scheme.

Our reading scheme enables children to develop reading skills as well as beginning to apply what the children have been learning in phonics.

Reading with children is a partnership between home and school.

Your child will read in a group twice each week in school.

Please ensure your child has both reading books and reading record in their bag every day.

Both books need to be returned on Friday

Please add a comment in your child’s reading record every time you hear them read. This communication is essential to our home school partnership.

Please listen to your child read every night.

Reading Homework

Learning to read is a very complex process, that takes a long time to master

Handwriting We introduce our handwriting scheme to the children in Reception.

The reason behind this is to teach good habits from the very beginning.

We teach a pre-cursive script with ‘wooshes and flicks’ (lead ins and outs) from the very beginning. This might look different to what your child has seen before, but we encourage you to support us in modelling the pre-cursive script from this point in their writing journey.

-Begins to use anticlockwise movement and retrace vertical lines.- Uses a pencil and holds it effectively to form recognisable letters, most of which are correctly formed.

Early Years CurriculumPhysical Development

40-60 MonthsIn EYFS, we focus on the Physical Development required to develop handwriting skills long term.

The EYFS Framework specifically makes reference to this element of development.

Children show good control and co-ordination in large and small movements.

They move confidently in a range of ways, safely negotiating space.

They handle equipment and tools effectively,including pencils for writing.

Early Learning Goal: Physical Development Moving and HandlingBy the end of EYFS, our aim is

for every child to have a strong and effective pencil grip which will support their writing.

- Use the diagonal and horizontal strokes needed to join letters in some of their writing

- Writing capital letters and digits of the correct size, orientation and relationship to one another and to lower-case letters

- Using spacing between words that reflects the size of the letters.

Expected Standard at the end of Key Stage 1 (Year 2)

At the end of Key Stage 1 (Year 2) this is the national expected standard that we hope to achieve ……

Working Towards the Expected Standard at the end of Key Stage 2 (Year 6)

- producing legible joined handwriting maintaining legibility, fluency and speed in handwriting joining some letters

By the end of KS2 (Year 6), this is the national expected standard that we hope to achieve ……

Establishing effective pencil grip is vital for developing confident writers - all of our children are different stages

on that journey.

As previously mentioned, in Reception our aim is to focus on the physical development of our children.

Don’t panic! We understand that every child is at a different stage on this journey. In fact, we know that lots of our children are not yet interested in writing and that their pencil grasps will vary significantly.

Our job is to create opportunities to engage the children in activities which will strengthen the muscles in their arms and fingers. This progress in their physical development will enable them to develop an effective pencil grip .

In class we have lots of different ongoing activities to support fine motor development

Here are some examples of some of the activities we would plan to support this physical development.…

Threading beads Drawing pins into pumpkins and making patterns with elastic bands

Threading small beads onto pipe cleaners Threading wool

through holes in card

Using tweezers to sort objects

This is an example of the pre cursive text that we use.

When we are modelling writing, it is important that we talk about upper and lower case letters.

This often begins with writing your child’s name.

Letters are grouped in letter families and follow a pattern

How each letter is formed is

important rather than just the

finished product.

We will introduce the formation of letters in line with our phonics programme.

Weekly home learning tasks will focus on revising the letter sounds with flash cards as well practising the letter formation.

Fun activities to support letter

formation

Our handwriting practise is fun and doesn’t have to involve sitting down with a pencil and paper.

We have fun developing the muscles in our hands at the dough disco. We use playdough, write with our fingers in glitter and sand, use feather dusters to write in the air, write in trays of paint and sand and much more!

We also use whiteboards and pens in our phonics lessons.

Sometimes we even dance!

Tracing patterns Experimenting with different writing materials Painting with water using large

paint brushes

Tracing over chalk letters with water

Writing with a paint brush in the glitter tray

Don’t….• Tell them it is ‘wrong’• Constantly rub out work• Get stressed!

Do….• Praise as much as possible. The fact that your

child is holding a pencil / pen is a big achievement! Tell them it’s amazing!

• Concentrate on one letter/ letter family at a time

• Provide lots of fun activities to support formation

• Short tasks that don’t take long but can be celebrated. It’s important not to overwhelm. Engagement is key to progress.

• Post it notes/ birthday cards/ shopping lists and Christmas lists with initial sounds / pads/ lined/ squared paper/ magic pens – mix it up and do what it takes to keep them interested.

Top Tips…..

We would love for you to share this exciting journey with your children.

Here are our top tips in supporting writing at home…..

Try to encourage as many opportunities for writing as possible

• shopping lists• Birthday cards• Thank you cards• Letters to grandparents• Postcards• Instructions

When writing independently the children will not spell everything correctly –they have not been taught all the sounds in words yet. It is better to let them try to hear and write the sounds they can hear than to spell it out for them!

Please share your home learning with us in school –we love to see it!

Send in your child’s work

Email us at info@2buildaprofile.com

Happy Writing!