Reading at home
At St Paul's we expect all children to read at home at least 5 times per week, but encourage them to read every day. This reading should be noted in the child's 'reading record book' to inform the classroom adults that they have read. Each week, a total of how many times each child has read is added together and celebrated in our celebration assembly every Friday. The class with the highest number of 'reads' for that week, wins the school's reading trophy to keep in the classroom until the following Friday assembly. As well as the trophy, the highest achieving classes in each year group also receive a special cuddly toy to keep in their classroom until the following Friday.
In every classroom, we have a ‘Reading Mission’ display. On this display we have our special reading monsters who live on their own planets. Each monster is a reading milestone with a prize for any child who achieves a certain amount of ‘reads’ at home. The first reading monster is 100 reads at home and this progresses all the way up to 500 reads at home. When a child reaches 100 reads, they can put a photo of themselves onto the display. The more they read at home, the further they will travel across the display and the more prizes they will win! Each time a child reaches a new reading planet, they will also receive a certificate to take home.
Additional Home Learning
Alongside regular reading, children will be set additional home learning as follows:
- Year 1:
One piece of home learning will be sent home each week. This will alternate between a maths activity and a spelling/writing activity. - Year 2:
Two pieces of home learning will be sent home weekly – one maths activity and one spelling/writing activity.
Sharing Home Learning
Completed home learning can either be returned to school or shared as a photo via Class Dojo. Children will receive one dojo point per piece of home learning completed.
Supporting at home
We encourage parents/carers to support children with their home learning while also promoting independence where appropriate. When completing writing tasks, children should use their phonics knowledge to spell words phonetically. However, if they are learning specific spellings, these words should be spelt correctly.
Parents/carers may wish to refer to their child's year group Connected Curriculum Map (found on the tab on the right, on dojo and a printed version is always sent home) to further support their learning at home. If your child completes any extra learning linked to the curriculum, teachers would love to see photos or evidence of their efforts. Please note, that while staff appreciate and celebrate additional learning, they cannot guarantee dojo points or classroom sharing opportunities for these extra activities.
Top Tips for Home Learning
Encourage independence
Many of you will have more than one child at home trying to do their learning. This can be very difficult, especially if children vary in age. Remember that in school, children would not have a grown up with them at all times while they are working. Encourage them to have a go on their own and, if they need your help, try to get them to solve problems themselves before you help them. This allows you to take a step back and do other things that you need to do, but also encourages your child to use the skills they have learnt in school. This is such an important skill that children need to maintain so that they are prepared to learn again in a class with 30 children in it.
When writing or reading, children are expected to use the sounds that they have learnt in phonics to Fred Talk (sound out) the word in order to write or read the new words. This may mean that spelling is not correct, but that is ok because they will learn to correct this as they learn more spelling patterns through their phonics. When praising their efforts, you can show the correct spelling if you think they can cope with hearing that at that time. For more complex words, the children would be supported by a teacher, word banks or dictionaries.
During Maths lessons, children are shown the way to work out an answer using a given method and then are encouraged to investigate this using objects before writing so that the concept is embedded. This is especially useful when adding, subtracting, multiplying or dividing (sharing). Please see the attached link for more information about how to support your child at home with their Maths learning.
Praise effort
At school, the children learn that it is not just the end result that is important in learning, the most important thing is that they try their best! Don’t worry about each piece of work being perfect, they do not need to correct every mistake. Instead, focus on praising them for how much effort they put in.
Tap into their interests
There will be times when it is hard to motivate your child! If they are losing interest, try to think about the things they like to encourage learning. All of our children have times at school when their learning is initiated by them, give them opportunities to do this at home as well.
