Reading regularly with your child is one of the most important things you can do at this stage to support their education.  Like any skill, the more children practise their reading, the better progress they make.  In school, we are not able to listen to each child read every day, but we will change children's books daily if they have read at home, and I will try to read with each child regularly to assess their progress.  One way we encourage the children to read at home is through a system where children can earn various coloured wristbands when they complete set targets of numbers of 'reads' at home.  If you only have time to do one thing with your child at home, then please do prioritise this- the benefits are massive!

 

Throughout KS1, we use the Talk for Writing method to engage children with imaginative and creative writing experiences. This begins by introducing the children to a simple text, and presenting this to them in the form of a 'story map'. This simplified visual presentation helps children first of all to memorise the text, and then to begin to explore some of the features of it. This provides the children with a firm understanding from which to experiment with their own creative ideas, incorporating some of the features of the model text. This is a very effective approach at developing high quality writing skills. When we send home copies of the texts, you can help at home by reading them together with your child and spotting together features of the text (eg punctuation, rhyming strings, repeated patterns etc.

 

Occasionally, I might ask the children to complete some other simple task at home. These will often be for the purpose of helping the children to make connections between their home and school environments, or to support the topic learning at school. The children are always very welcome to bring in anything small which they would like to show to the rest of the class, and we will try to find time for that within the school day. Please only send in items that are not too precious though!

This year we are writing a collective book about Paddington Bear and his adventures in and around Cornwall. If he comes home with your children, please encourage them to write a sentence or two about anything that he does!

Alongside their reading, in Year 1 we begin to set children a weekly spelling list.  These spellings are closely linked with National Curriculum targets for spellings, and are part of a school wide spelling scheme which we follow at Mabe.  When you help your children practise their spellings, a key part of this is to make sure that they are first of all able to read all of the words.  We introduce the lists carefully at school, and reinforce them through the week, and this always begins with practising reading each word.  This process will then help the children to begin to segment the sounds needed to write the word.  You can then adopt the 'look, cover, write, check' method as they become more familiar with the words on the list. 

 

 Maths

As many of you will know, the maths learning at Mabe School takes place using the White Rose Mastery scheme of work.  This method begins with developing a sound knowledge base and fluency in each area of learning, before going on to present more challenging reasoning and problem solving questions.  You can support this at home by keeping an eye on the blog or visiting the classroom to see what the children are focussing on in their maths learning.  You can then bring some of the fluency or reasoning type language into your everyday conversations with the children, encouraging them to use accurate language to express their ideas.  This can be done very informally during trips to the shops, walks on the beach, conversations in the car etc.  If you are not sure about how to phrase these types of questions, the display in the classroom has examples you can borrow!