Letters and Sounds
Today I collected your child’s Letters and Sounds book. I will collect the books every Thursday and return them on Friday with our new Letters and Sounds learning and sounds added.
I hope you are finding the books useful at home. This week we have started using magnetic letters to begin to read and spell simple words eg. as, it, is, an, at, map, pat, tap, tip, pip, sat, sit. All words that use the sounds we have learnt so far. Thank you for all your support helping your child learn to read at home, I was so impressed at the children’s progress.
For those children who may already be aware of our new sounds, please concentrate on learning to form the letter using the school cursive script. We call it our ‘whoosh’ writing. Details are in the Letters and Sounds book. This will really support your child’s future writing skills.
If your child is not quite ready to hold a pen and write yet, concentrate on lots of hand/ finger skills to develop the small muscles in your child’s hands and fingers. For example, cooking, gardening, getting dressed/undressed (especially buttons) or doing up their coat zip.
This week I introduced a game on a website called Phonics Play www.phonicsplay.co.uk
The Phonics Play website has some fantastic phonics games. Whilst there is a subscription charge, this is currently being halved and some games are free. Reception children are currently working on Phase 2 so just click on the Phase 2 games.
Precautionary note: Remember e-safety supervision. St. Adrian’s website includes a useful e-safety advice link.
Here is another game we have played in class today. You may wish to have a go at home.
Which One?
Lay out a selection of familiar objects with names that contain three sounds (e.g. bus, pig, pen, cup, dog).
Check your child can recognise each object.
Ask your child to listen carefully while you sound talk the name of one of the objects, leaving a short gap between each sound eg. b-u-s
Help your child to put the sounds together and say the word and identify the object.
Once your child can confidently listen to your ‘sound talking’ and blend the sounds together, perhaps your child may like to have a go at ‘sound talking’ each object. This will help your child learn to spell words using their knowledge of phonics.
I am currently organising my routine to set a weekly ‘changing reading books’ day. Next week I will change the reading books and words strips on Monday. Books and other reading materials will then be changed on Tuesdays. Please do let me know if you feel your child needs new books at any other time. However, ensure you read each book with your child at least three times before requesting a new book This will help build confidence, fluency and comprehension. Spend 10 minutes each day if possible, frequent and short is best.
Thank you again for all your support.
Nicola Palmer