Whitefield Community Primary School

English

Tips For Parents

Ways to Help Your Child with Writing

Ideas you can implement at home to create a supportive environment that encourages writing development:

• Talk with your child about places you visit, work you do, books you read, or television programs you watch together.
• Encourage your child to read, especially things he or she chooses, and let your child see you read.
• Praise your child’s efforts at writing. Be primarily interested in content.

Emphasize your child’s successes. For every error your child makes, there are a dozen things done well. Resist the tendency to focus only on errors of spelling, punctuation, and other mechanical parts of writing.

• Provide a suitable place for your child to write--a flat surface, good light, a comfortable chair.
• Give gifts (and encourage others to do the same for birthdays and special occasions) associated with writing: pens, pencils, pads of paper, stationery, a dictionary or thesaurus, erasers--even stamps.
• Encourage your child to write request letters for information, free samples, travel brochures, etc.
• Be alert to occasions when your child can be involved in writing. Writing for real purposes is rewarding, and the daily activities of families present many opportunities for purposeful writing (telephone messages or notes to family members).

Questions you can ask when your child brings writing home

About Purpose and Audience:

• What do you want to write about? Why?
• Who will want or need to read this?
• What do you want your reader to know or do?
• How will you present it to the reader?

About Idea Development/Support:

• Do your details help the reader understand?
• Are they the best details and examples for the reader and for your purpose?
• Have you explained important ideas?
• Do your examples focus on the main ideas?
• Do your details make the ideas clearer?

About Organization:

• Did you stick to your plan throughout the piece of writing?
• Does the order of the ideas make sense?
• Does all of your information fit together?
• Do your ideas lead the reader easily from one to another?
• Will your reader be able to follow all of your thinking?

About Sentences:

• Do your sentences have different lengths? Different beginnings? Different structures? Or do they sound too much alike?
• Do your sentences express complete thoughts? About Wording: • Have you used a variety of words to make your meaning clear?
• Do the words say what you mean?
• Are all of your words used correctly?

About Correctness:

• Have you made any mistakes in spelling?
• Do you see any punctuations problems?
• Have you used capital letters correctly?

https://www.spellingshed.com/en-gb/index.html

Spellings

Spellings are an important aspect of the curriculum. We follow the Spelling Shed scheme of work, this platform is used as a complete whole-school spelling solution as it covers 100% of the curriculum. We give weekly lists and activities to children and we also give them assignments which provide targeted practice, the children have access to online games and the children have a weekly whole-class spelling test . Most children are given 10 spellings per week. Children on provision maps/lower ability children may be given up to 5 spellings. An online record of spelling scores are kept and discussions with parents take place if children are getting low scores regularly. The Spelling Shed scheme also includes:

• The ability to create unlimited custom lists and search for others' lists within the platform.
• A tablet and mobile game for students to use to practise spelling.
• A teacher hub, which allows simple management of student records, teachers and classes.
• The ability to set and monitor homework assignments for e.g. weekly spelling lists.
• Whole-class Hive games that allow all pupils to play alongside each other as an alternative for a weekly spelling test.

Spelling end of year expectations

http://dera.ioe.ac.uk/18288/1/English_Appendix_1_-_Spelling.pdf

Reading

Accelerated Reading

We use the Accelerated Reading programme as our home reading book system. Accelerated Reading is a computer program that helps teachers manage and monitor children’s independent reading practice. At the beginning of the school year and at the end of each half term children do an online STAR reading test. STAR Reading is a computer based reading assessment program that uses computer-adaptive technology. Questions continually adjust to the children’s responses. If the child’s response is correct, the difficulty level is increased. If the child cannot answer a question or answers incorrectly, the difficulty level is reduced. The test uses multiple-choice questions and takes approximately 20 minutes. The test then generates a report that indicates the child’s reading age and book level. From this test, children pick a book at their own level and reads it at their own pace. When finished, the child takes a short quiz on the computer - passing the quiz is an indication that the child has understood what has been read. AR gives both children and teachers feedback based on the quiz results which the teacher then uses to help the child set targets and ongoing reading practice. All children are expected to read with a parent or carer every night and are expected to quiz a minimum of twice a week.

KS1 question stems to help your child with comprehension

https://www.literacyshedblog.com/uploads/1/2/5/7/12572836/ks1_reading_vipers.pdf

KS2 question stems to help your child with comprehension

https://www.literacyshedblog.com/uploads/1/2/5/7/12572836/ks2_reading_vipers.pdf

Information on Teaching of English

Reading

Writing