Helping Your Child Reception/Y1/Y2

Introduction

When children start school, they begin to learn to read and write. These are two of the most important areas of their early learning. As a parent you can help your child in many ways and share their new experiences.

Helping Your Child

• Contact the school and ask for their guidelines about reading and writing. Use these guidelines so you don't confuse your child.
• Relax - make the learning fun.
• Ask your child to read to you every day until they are confident to read alone.
• Ask your child to talk about what he/she reads. Make the questions part of your everyday conversation.
• Have some useful books around the house - a simple dictionary (with colour and pictures for young children), some information books, story books, etc. There are also some lovely CD ROMs for younger children to use.
• Print out and use the worksheets on this site. They are a starting point for reading activities or word games.
• Make up some word games of your own and play them before bedtime or in the car. 'I Spy' is an old favourite!
• A story at bedtime is always fun at this age. Occasionally, you could listen to a taped story together.

Literacy isn't just about reading books. Words are everywhere - on notices, in newspapers, in magazines, in supermarkets, on adverts. Look at words and encourage your child to read them wherever they appear

Using the Activities

All the activities can be printed out and used away from the computer. Some are more suitable for Reception children while others will appeal to older children.

Read through each page with your child. Encourage him to read as much as possible himself but help him with difficult words. The activities are meant to be fun.

You will see three characters on the activity pages. Penny Phonic is there when there are sounds to learn. Word Mouse reminds the children to take care with spellings and Grammar Bug is a gentle reminder of the rules of grammar. The postman brings surprises in an envelope. These can appear anywhere.

Generally:

• Reception children should recognise the sounds of the letters of the alphabet ready for writing, and learn to read some basic words (a, the, he, is etc. ) ready for reading. Use the first Word Lists from the Something to Remember page as a guide.

• Year 1 children should start to read and write simple words and begin to recognise that two letters can make a sound at the beginning, in the middle or at the end of a word (e.g.. st, ch, sh, oo, ee). Most children will be able to read more words than they can write.

• Year 2 children should be able to use the sounds that letters make to recognise new and more difficult words. They should learn that sometimes words have the same sound but a different spelling (e.g.. cow, out; blue, too; etc.)

Something to Read

These activities can be read by children or parents. There is a selection of reading activities - poems, stories and factual accounts - to encourage children to read different types of writing. Many of them are linked to one of the written activities. Three themes are used: animals, my family and colours.

Something to Write

These should be printed out and used away from the computer. The writing activities concentrate on words, sentences or longer pieces of writing (text). Your child is introduced to some simple phonics (the sounds that make up words).

Always check what your child has written and encourage them to talk about the activity.

Something to Remember

On these pages you will find Word Lists for spelling practice, Grammar Rules that your child should learn, or snippets of information. Use these to reinforce the written activity sheets.

In addition to the Word Lists and Word Families given here, your child should practise writing his/her name and address.

Something to Find Out

Have fun with words. The Find Out activities are talk-about activities, simple research activities, or 'things to do' activities. They introduce children to the idea of finding and using information from different sources - but young children will need a lot of help!

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