Dunholme St Chad's Church Of England Primary School

Your child will be sent home with resources to support reading, writing and maths. Additional support at home is invaluable and has a huge impact on children's progress in school. We expect that children will be doing around 15 minutes of home learning a day but it is up to you how you organise your week. We do, however, recommend that children read for at least 5-10 minutes every day.

Reading

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, we are minimising risk by avoiding items, including books and resources, going unnecessarily backwards and forwards between home and school. As a result of this we will only access your child's book bag on a Friday when we will change their home reading book and on a Monday when we will add their new spellings into their book.

Adults in school will listen to your child read at least twice a week using our Read Write Inc schemed books as well as other supplementary phonics based books. These will be changed regularly. We ask that you support your child by listening to them read appropriate texts were possible. You can find levelled reading books on the Oxford Owl website. Please let us know if you need any support with this.

As a school, we use the Lexia programme to support children's reading development. Each child has their own login and password so the programme can be accessed at home. Please speak to one of your child's teachers if you are struggling to access the programme.

Spellings

Children will be taught some of the Year 1 key words on a Monday and they will be sent home for them to practise. We will send a spelling book at the beginning of the term and this book is intended to stay at home. Each week, your child will come home with their spellings on a slip of paper to stick in their book. Your child could practise by writing out the words several times and we recommend that they write them in a simple sentence too. Once taught and tested, children will be expected to spell these correctly in their work and will become ‘non-negotiables.’ Therefore, if they are spelled incorrectly in their work, they will be asked to correct them. Some children will receive a couple of extra spellings as a challenge. The picture below shows the Year 1 words as they appear on a classroom display. Once they are moved up to the ‘Words We Know’ section, they become non-negotiable. Once we have covered th Year 1 words, children will begin to learn spelling patterns weekly. Children may still be sent home Year 1 key words if they are not yet applying them independently.

Term 1 spellings - Below are the spellings your child received during Term 1. Please ensure that your child is regularly consolidating these and being able to spell these in their written work when writing sentences as well as an individual word.

a	ask	is	has	his
he	be	me	she	we
no	go	so	by	my
do	to	today	I	you
your

Term 2 spellings - Below are the spellings your child will receive during Term 2. Please ensure that your child is regularly consolidating these and being able to spell these in their written work when writing sentences as well as an individual word.

said	says	the	they	there
here	one	once	of	was
were	love	where	want	are
our

Term 3 spellings- Below are the spellings your child will receive during Term 2. Please ensure that your child is regularly consolidating these and being able to spell these in their written work when writing sentences as well as an individual word.

push	pull	house	put	full
school	friend

Maths Wallets

Your child has a maths wallet containing their individual target. These wallets are intended to stay at home and we will ask for them back at the end of the term so that we can set a new target. If you would like any ideas for how to practise these targets, then please send us an email. They will be assessed throughout the term but if you feel your child is confident and requires a new target then just let us know.

Phonics Wallets

Towards the end of Year 1 your child will take the phonics check which is a national check of children’s ability to decode real and nonsense words to read. We continue to teach phonics every day and will spend the first part of the year reviewing and embedding the phonics learning of Reception. After that, we will focus on some new phonemes but also some new graphemes to represent sounds already learned. In Year 1, phonetic spelling is expected to be plausible and not necessarily accurate in terms of grapheme choice. In your child’s phonic wallet will be a list of graphemes learned. This wallet is intended to stay at home. We will periodically send home extra resources once we have learned a new set of sounds. There will also be a whiteboard and a dry wipe pen for your child to practise spelling words. You can also write words for your child to read. Below is the Read Write Inc. Speed Sounds Chart as displayed in the classroom.

Non-Negotiables

Your child may come home and talk about Non-Negotiables. These are aspects of English that all children in Year 1 are expected to achieve by the end of the year. Currently, our Non-Negotiables display has finger spaces as an expectation. This helps children know what they need to check for in their independent work. In Term 2, we will add capital letters at the start of sentences as a basic expectation. In Term 3, we will expect all sentences to end with a full stop.

Handwriting

In Year 1 we introduce a new handwriting scheme to the children in order to improve standards of handwriting across the school and also to make joining letters easier for children. We will introduce a cursive script which involves a lead in to each letter. This can make it easier for children because they know that all letters start on the line. The phrases we use are the same as learned in Reception but with a ‘whoosh!’ at the start. For example, the letter ‘a’ would be; whoosh! Round the apple, down the leaf. We learn and practise these letters in handwriting and there is no expectation that children use these in their independent writing initially although we will recognise and praise those children who are trying to apply their new skills. As the year goes on we will start to expect that some children will be ready to use this script independently. We have included all of the cursive script below so that you can help your child should they want to practise at home.

Year 1 Recommended Reading List

As well as being an enjoyable pastime, reading impacts hugely on children’s writing ability and general learning. Therefore, we encourage children to read as much as possible, both at home and in school. To assist with the difficult task of choosing a new book, we have put together a recommended reading list for each year group. A lot of these books are available within the classroom, or the shared school library; we are gradually stocking up to build on the range of books available to children. Thisis not an exhaustive list, but represents a cross-section of books suitable for your child’s year group. Some of the texts are more difficult to read than others and care should be taken when choosing those which your child might enjoy. Please discuss the books your child reads with him/her and remember that it is also important to continue to read stories to your child as he /she moves through the school.

Please note – some of these books, due to their challenging nature, are also on the Y2 reading list

The Very Hungry Caterpillar – Eric Carle

We’re Going on a Bear Hunt - Michael Rosen

Peace at Last – Jill Murphy

A First Book of Nature – Nicola Davies

Avocado Baby – John Burningham

Black Dog and The Django – Levi Pinfold

Cops and Robbers, The Jolly Postman and Funnybones – Allan Ahlberg

I Am Henry Finch – Alexis Deacon, Viviane Schwarz

Journey – Aaron Becker

Little Red and the Very Hungry Lion – Alex T Smith

Mister Magnolia – Quentin Blake

My Big Barefoot Book of Wonderful Words - Sophie Fatus

Out for the Count – Anne Fine

See Inside the World of Shakespeare – Rob Lloyd Jones

The Cat in the Hat – Dr Suess

The Dark – Lemony Snicket

Emperor of Absurdia – Chris Riddell

The Girl with the Parrot on Her Head – Daisy Hirst

Man on the Moon – Simon Bartram

The Owl Who was Afraid of the Dark – Jill Tomlinson

The Paper Dolls – Julia Donaldson

Three By the Sea – Mini Grey

The Gruffalo – Julia Donaldson

Beegu – Alexis Deacon

The Day the Crayons Quit – Drew Daywalt

Tiny Seed and The Bad-Tempered Ladybird – Eric Carle

The Gigantic Turnip – Alexei Tolstoy

The Trouble with Jack – Shirley Hughes

Mister Magnolia – Quentin Blake

Frog and Toad Are Friends – Arnold Lobel

Amazing Grace – Mary Hoffman

Where the Wild Things Are – Maurice Sendak

Traction Man series – Mini Grey

Dogger – Shirley Hughes

Outdoor Learning

When the children take part in Outdoor Learning they will go out in all weathers so please can you make sure your child has a pair of Wellington Boots in school - Thank you.

Star of the Week and Pride of the week

Our Star of the Week and Pride of the week are two important awards that we give out each week! Each week we look for something different for the Pride of the week which we decide as a class and the star of the week is for a stand-out super star of the week! I know everyone is working hard to win these prestigious awards!

Well done everyone!

Dunholme St Chad's Church Of England Primary School

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