Literacy

READING WORKSHOPS

This term, we are introducing the children to the Reader's Workshop. The children will be working towards choosing 'Good Fit Books' and will continue to develop their decoding skills when attempting unknown words. 

We will be continuing to use the CAFE approach to develop the children's' reading skills. Some of the strategies we will be focusing on this Term include 'Cross Checking', 'Expanding Vocabulary' and 'Making a Mental Image'.

We will be using library sessions as a chance for children to engage in free reading time, and to choose books that they wish to take home for shared reading time with their family. 

WRITING WORKSHOPS

We are about to begin setting up our Writers Notebooks for the year. We invite all children to bring in photos/pictures/stickers to decorate their Writers Notebooks. These notebooks are where all of their ideas for writing will be stored. Teachers generally don't look through the Writers Notebook; it is a space for your child to store all their thoughts and isn't expected to look 'polished'.

In addition to building ideas in our Writers Notebooks, this term we will be focusing on the elements that make up a narrative piece of writing. We will be exploring character development, setting, problem and solution, to create engaging narrative pieces.

The children will be participating in fortnightly 'Warm Writes'. We will send home the prompt the night before, and encourage you to chat with your child to begin generating ideas as part of the writing process. As part of the Warm Write process, children will also begin editing their work.

PHONICS

This term, we are working to consolidate the children's ability to recognise and spell phonograms. We will begin introducing focus rules every fortnight, which will link to the children's spelling homework. The rules we are covering this term are:

- The letter q must always be followed by the letter u

- When to use ck or k at the end of a word