At Christ Church, we firmly believe that reading is at the forefront of all our learning and encourages children's imaginations by delving into magical or alternative worlds. In order for your child to get the best out of the texts we send home, the books available on MyOn or the books they may enjoy at home, we would love to see children's reading records updated regularly (at least three times a week). It doesn't need to be an essay! A signature or small comment will ensure your child is in with a chance of winning a Reader of the Week token and will get to visit out fabulous Book Vending machine. Remember - you have to be in it to win it!
Here are some tips for when you are listening to children read:
- Encourage children sounding out - this will link to children breaking down words and looking for special friends as they have learned in phonics.
- Allow for mistakes - if children read the sentence and make a small error but it still makes sense, that's fine! Gently remind them of any misread words.
- Ask questions about what was read - ask them about character's feelings, what they did, simple retrieval questions (e.g. what did the man take on holiday?). This check children's understanding of what they have read.
- Talk about whether they like the story and why. They may not! And that's fine too!
- Have fun! Encourage different voices and intonations for characters by modelling this yourself.
As well as reading every night, spellings will be sent home every Friday and children tested on these spellings the following Friday. These sheets should be kept at home so children can learn them through the week.
TTrockstars should be accessed through the week to aid children in learning their times tables. Prizes will be given to children to access this the most and make the most improvement with their times tables.
Home school link project will be sent home every term linked to a topic children will be learning about in school - we can't wait to see what you create!
In year 5, we really come full circle with our writing. Children are encouraged to use all the skills they've been beavering away on in previous year groups as well as starting to use relative clauses and fronted adverbials. We use VIPERS when completing guided reading sessions and encourage the use of this when we are reading our class novel through the week.
Here are some of the books we will be reading:
At Christ Church, we follow the singapore maths scheme 'Maths No Problem'. The beginning of each lesson starts with an 'In focus' where children have a go at solving a problem linked to the topic we will be learning. We then learn about different methods together, progress to guided practice and finally children indepedently (or, where needed, complete in a group) work through the linked workbook. This method has proven to encourage independence and confidence in maths.
It is imperative that children are encourage to participate in TTrockstars. Learning our times tables really does open all doors in maths and, even more excitingly, children could win an inflatable instrument! Who doesn't want their own blow up band?!