Literacy
English
It has been exciting visiting the communities and watching your children participate in their Literacy Block. Lots of new resources have been purchased for use in the communities, that your children have enjoyed using. These include lots of new Big Books, Guided Reading books and resources for the students and teachers to use.
Welcome to our new Foundation families.
The students are settling in really well and they are enjoying making new friends in the community. If your child is able to write their name – fantastic, if not, it would be great if you were able to help them with this.
Other ideas to help our new Foundation students include
- learning to sing nursery rhymes
The clip below has some popular Nursery Rhymes that your child could practice singing along to.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaMo4yJGDIA
- listening for the different sounds you can hear in words. The children have begun learning words that have a s, a, t, p, i, n, sound in them. You could help your child with learning these sounds by sounding out words with these sounds. This link introduces these sounds
https://www.youtube.com/c/LittleLearnersVideos/videos
- reading aloud to your child, focusing on the way we track the text with our fingers, noticing the spaces between words, putting out the different punctuation. The clip below discusses the importance of these concepts about print
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1Vk2kLPDi0&t=3s
Our 1/2 communities, Argus and Xenica have settled in well also, with lots of Reading and Writing taking place.
These students have been practising writing, with the new grade 1 students being well supported, after an interrupted Foundation year. They are learning to
- sound out new words
- have a go at writing with spaces between words
- use dotted thirds correctly.
Our grade 2 students have been learning to write longer sentences and adding more detail into their stories. The clip below outlines the stages of writing and what a parent could do to help support their child’s writing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuCN9kP2m20
Our 3/4 community, Ulysses, have been working hard during their Literacy Block.
Many of the students are transitioning from Learning to Read, to Reading to Learn. This happens once a student has learned all of the 44 sounds of the English language. Yes, 44 sounds, even though there are 26 letters in the alphabet! Sounds such as ch, sh, and th are made when two letters are combined to make one new sound. The clip below will help explain this further.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41m-igTNUkE
If your child was interested in getting Epic, here is the sign in to create an account. It has thousands of books to access that can be read to your child, or they read them.
https://www.getepic.com/promo?signUpV=create_account
Another digital library for students is Starfall that also has thousands of books for students to access.
https://www.starfall.com/h/index-grades123.php
Our 5/6 community, Icarus, have settled in well and they are working hard during the Literacy Block.
The students are learning to identify independent goals they are working towards, as they become more fluent and independent readers. If your child would like to create an Epic account the link is above. Alternatively, the Library in Craigieburn is a fabulous place to visit and get to know everything it has to offer.
https://www.humelibraries.vic.gov.au/Locations_amp_Hours/Libraries/Craigieburn_Library
Once registered at the library, which is a free service, the whole family can access the resources and classes at the library.
Reading every night is important for all students, especially as they get older. Storyline Online is a great place to have picture story books read aloud, by some famous faces who share their favourite books.
Please come and see me if you have any questions about Literacy at Aitken Hill Primary School.
Narelle DeYoung
Literacy Learning Specialist