Helping Your Child
Home Reading
At Blessed Sacrament we aim to develop a love of reading among all our pupils. Reading not only supports all areas of the curriculum but also provides an opportunity for parents and carers to spend quality time with their children. Pupils take home reading books regularly. We encourage you to read with your child at home to support reading progress and nurture reading for pleasure and enjoyment.
Reading is a fundamental aspect of life. The role parents or carers play in developing early reading skills is crucial and we aim to support our families to ensure all children are competent readers by the age of 11.
Below is some helpful information you may find useful when listening to your child read on a regular basis:
Children’s Reading Record: Children are issued with a reading record which should be sent into school each day with their reading books. Parents should read with their child as often as possible and comment in the reading record book. Please look at these regularly also, in case your child’s teacher has written you a message.
Hearing Your Child Read
Learning to read is one of the most essential skills we learn and it impacts on all subject areas. This is an area where parental support can make a huge difference to your child’s progress and confidence. Your child will bring home reading books each week. Please try to spend some time each day hearing them read and discussing their books. Please record when you have heard your child read, the page they have got to and any comments in your child’s reading record. This helps your child’s teacher to monitor their reading habits at home and is a great form of home/school communication.
Please read with your child as often as possible, and regularly sign and make a comment in their reading record book. Ideally, your child should be heard read EVERY DAY to build fluency and comprehension, from Nursery to Year 6.
In KS2, your child is responsible for changing their reading book when they have finished, but will not be able to get a new book until their reading record book has been signed.
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Questions to ask your child about the book they are reading: |
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Where does the story take place? When does the story take place? What does the character look like? Where does the character live? Who are the key characters in the book? What happens in the story? What kinds of people are in the story? Explain something that has happened at a specific point in the story? |
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If you were going to interview the main character/author, which questions would you ask? Which is your favourite part? Why? Who would you like to meet most in the story? Why? What do you think would happen next if the story carried on past the ending of the book? Who was the storyteller? How do you know? Predict what you think is going to happen next. Why do you think this? Is this a place you could visit? Why/why not? How is the main character feeling at the start/middle/end of the story? Why do they feel that way? Does this surprise you? |
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Were you surprised by the ending? Is it what you expected? Why/why not? What is the main event of the story? Why do you think this? How has the text been organised? Why do you think authors use short sentences? How did you think it would end/should end? Has the author used an unusual layout in the text? If so, describe it and say why you think they did this? Has the author used a variety of sentence structures? Has the author put certain words in bold or italic? Why have they done this? |
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Why did the author choose this title? Do you want to read the rest of the text? How does the writer encourage you to read the rest of the text? Can you find some examples of effective description? What makes them effective? Which part of the story best describes the setting? Can you find examples of powerful adjectives? What do they tell you about a character or setting? Can you find examples of powerful adverbs? What do they tell you about a character, their actions or the setting? Can you find examples of powerful verbs? What do they tell you about a character, their actions or the setting? Find an example of a word you don’t know the meaning of. Using the text around it, what do you think it means? |
Helping Your Child to Write
Parental Involvement
A Newsletter is sent out regularly. It includes important dates, reports of events and developments in school. More detailed information relating to class visits and particular events will be sent out by letter when necessary. Each class sends out a termly newsletter relating to events and the curriculum.
Education is a partnership between school and home. Parental help is always welcome in school to accompany visits, to assist with clubs and to work in classes. We welcome your help at home in listening to your child read. All pupils are given homework commensurate with their age and ability. Parental support to ensure that homework is completed properly and in time is much appreciated. We hope that by working together we can help your child enjoy success at school.
PARENTAL CONTROLS FOR DEVICES AND COMPUTERS AT HOME
LETTERJOIN HANDWRITING
Letter Join at home We are part of the Letter-join handwriting scheme and any of our pupils wishing to practise their handwriting at home can now log in to the Letter-join website on iPads and tablets as well as desktop and laptop computers. There you will find the same, easy-to-use handwriting resources as we use at school.
How to log in to Letter-join
DESKTOP AND LAPTOP LOG-IN
Simply go to www.letterjoin.co.uk
and log in, using the Desktop log-in boxes, with these details:
User name:
Password:
Letter-join will work on the following browsers on PCs:
• Google Chrome • Firefox
• Safari • Opera
We cannot recommend using Internet Explorer for Letter-join.
IPAD AND TABLET LOG-IN
Go to www.letter-join.co.uk, select the Tablet Login button and log in using these details:
User name:
Swipe code (starting at top left):
Letter-join will run on the following tablets:
• iPads running at least iOS7 through the Safari browser.
• Windows 8 tablets (8 inch and bigger) using the built-in browser.
• Android tablets (8 inch and bigger) using Google Chrome, Firefox or Opera.
Once logged-in, you will be able to watch how to form all the letters of the alphabet using the se same style that we use at school. You can then trace over the letters and words on
ur your tablet and print out the worksheets from your PC for real handwriting practice.