The Minster Primary School
Supporting Reading, Writing
and Spelling at home
How you can help
Introduction
At the Minster Primary School we believe that all children should have the enjoyment and
satisfaction that comes from reading, writing and spelling. This booklet gives practical
suggestions on how you, as parents/carers, can assist in your child’s learning. We hope you
find it useful.
How to help
You have a tremendous influence on your child’s attitude towards reading, writing and
spelling. Remind them of their strengths and encourage them to tackle anything they find
difficult with a positive attitude.
• Your child’s success will be greatly increased if he or she feels confident.
• Believe in them and show how proud you are of them.
• Praise them when they make an effort.
Praise lets children know when they are doing the right things in learning to read, write or
spell. Praise motivates them to keep on trying. When you praise children it is important to
tell them why you are pleased with them, and then they can see for themselves what they
are doing is right.
Reading
Children do not enjoy the experience of learning to read if they are not making progress.
o Set aside a special time and place for reading. Don’t let the phone or TV distract your
child.
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When you listen to your child read give plenty of praise.
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Don’t rush – let your child turn the pages.
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Help keep your child interested and enthusiastic about reading by giving him or her a
wide range of reading materials, including comics, magazines etc.
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Make sure the book is not too difficult.
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Everybody enjoys being read to. If your child is interested in, but can’t read a
particular book – read it to him or her.
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Discuss the pictures together and what might happen in the story.
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Share the story with your child, reading as little or as much as s/he feels comfortable
with.
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Let him/her re-read favourite stories.
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Only correct if the meaning is lost or changed.
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If your child is stuck at a word, leave it out and read onto the end of the sentence.
Then have a go at the unknown word using the first letter/picture/rest of sentence to
help. If this doesn’t work then give the word.
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Recorded stories encourage a love of books too – they are perfect for long car
journeys!
Our Expectations for Reading
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We would like every child at the Minster Primary School to read as often as possible,
every day if possible, and record their reading in their reading record. We understand
there are times when this is not possible, however we like to set high expectations and
reading regularly will give your child the best support possible.
In Key Stage 2 children are still expected to read regularly either to an adult or by
themselves. Years 3 and 4, children are expected to read for 15 minutes at least 5
times a week and they should record this in their reading journal. While in Years 5 and
6, children are expected to read for 25-30 minutes at least 5 times a week and record
this in their reading journal. Teachers will check reading journals regularly and the
children will not earn ‘golden time’ if they do not read regularly.
Encourage your child to take responsibility for their own reading. Remind them to
change their book when they have finished it and let them choose freely.
Use your child’s reading record to help us keep up to date with their likes/dislikes, new
words they have discovered or things you talked about linked to the book.
Spelling
The emphasis on spelling is much greater in the 2014 National Curriculum and this is reflected
in our teaching and the children’s learning throughout the school. Regular spelling or phonic
sessions will be taught in every class throughout the week. We will also assess children’s
spellings through their writing and more formal tests.
Spellings will be sent home for children to practise and learn and we would appreciate
your help in supporting your child to do this.
There are many different ways you can learn spellings and the more ‘fun’ you make it, the more
likely your child is to remember it!
Here are some things you can try.
o Decorate or illustrate the words.
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Make and Break - Write the word on paper. Cut each letter out. Jumble them up
to see if you can rebuild the word.
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Use sand, flour, chalk, squeezy bottles to write out words.
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Type the word.
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Look at the word and concentrate on the tricky part. Close your eyes and
imagine the word before trying to rewrite it.
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Colour and trace over the word in different colours.
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Say the word slowly as you write it.
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Take one of the words and try to make as many other words with the same
sound e.g. sound, found, round, ground.
Find words within the word e.g. there’s a rat in separate
Segment the word into smaller chunks e.g. diff-er-ent
Say the word in a ‘silly way’ to help remember the spelling e.g. bus-i-ness
Use a mnemonic e.g. because – big elephants can always understand small
elephants
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You might also like to use the spelling strategy - Look, Cover, Write, Check
LOOK - Carefully read the word. Use the Make and Break technique. Break down into
syllables (put hand under chin – each time your chin moves make a syllable.)
COVER - Cover the word and try to imagine it.
WRITE – Write the word out from memory
CHECK - If it is misspelt, say what is wrong. What do you have to remember? Try
again.
How spelling is taught and tested across
the school
Every child will:
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Have a list of spellings to learn every week (apart from Reception class – you will be
given sounds to practise at home and given occasional words such as tricky words e.g.,
said to learn)
Have dedicated ‘spelling’ lessons looking at spelling patterns or rules, or Phonic sounds
Have regular spelling tests to check they are learning and remembering the words that
are sent home.
Recognise when they spell a word incorrectly in their independent writing because it will
be highlighted in yellow.
As always, if you unsure about any of this or have concerns, please see
your child’s class teacher. We can feedback how your child is
progressing with spelling during Parent’s Evening.
Details specific to each class:
Reception
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Children will not be tested on their spellings or phonics
Children will have a ‘phonics lesson’ every day
Letter sounds or words will be sent home for children to practise reading and blending.
Year 1
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Children will have weekly spellings to learn and they will be tested on these.
These words will be chosen from the first 100 key words list, also known as ‘high
frequency words’. They might also have to learn ‘tricky words’ which do not conform to
a specific phonic ‘rule’.
Children will have a ‘phonics lesson’ every day
In June children in Year 1 will have to take a National Phonics Screening Assessment.
You’ll receive more information about this nearer the time.
Year 2
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Children will have weekly spellings to learn and they will be tested on these.
These words will be taken from a set list provided by the National Curriculum.
Children will have a ‘phonics lesson’ every day and common spelling patterns will also be
taught.
Children will also be expected to know how to spell the 200 key words.
Year 3 and Year 4
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Children will be given weekly spellings to learn
The spellings will be tested at the end of each term.
The weekly spellings will be chosen from a set list provided by the National Curriculum,
combined with other key words your child might have got wrong in their class work.
Children will have 4 spelling sessions a week and these will correspond to the weekly
spellings which go home.
Year 5 and Year 6
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Children will be given weekly spellings to learn
The spellings will be tested at the end of each half term. (Year 6 will also be given
weekly spelling tests at the discretion of the class teacher!)
The weekly spellings will be chosen from a set list provided by the National Curriculum,
combined with other key words your child might have got wrong in their class work.
A list of key words can be found in the front of their reading journal and children will
be given time in class to read back through their writing and identify the ‘key words’
they are regularly spelling incorrectly.
Children will have 3 spelling sessions a week and these will correspond to the weekly
spellings which go home.
Writing
Many children find writing difficult because there are so many things to think about at the
same time! In the early stages of learning to write, children are only able to focus on some
aspects. For example - a child concentrating on writing an exciting adventure story may
temporarily ‘forget’ handwriting or spelling. As they improve, the skills will become better
integrated.
It is important that children see writing as a means of communicating to real people for a real
reason.
o Be a writing model – let them see you writing in lots of different contexts
o Encourage your child to write alongside you – composing letters, messages, emails, and
reports - even text messages!
o Create real writing opportunities such as shopping lists, labels, letters, birthday cards,
messages, emails or invitations.
o Encourage your child to make his/her own little story-books or diaries, such as holiday
diaries or scrapbooks.
The basis of good writing is good talk. When you visit places, encourage your child to talk
about what has been seen, heard, smelled, tasted, touched. Encourage children to share
their experiences in as much detail as possible!
Tips for helping your child to enjoy Writing
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Let your child write their own Christmas cards, thank you letters, cards or e-mails to
friends or relatives, invitations to a party, or a list of things they need to take on holiday.
Play word-building games like Boggle or Scrabble. Games like ‘Guess Who’ can also
develop their descriptive vocabulary.
Create silly sentences or tongue twisters using alliteration (a group of words that all begin
with the same sound) E.g. Silly Sarah slipped on Sam’s salmon sandwiches
Monty Mouse marched merrily to the magic mountain.
Different types and colours of paper, different pens and pencils, envelopes, stampers and
various other stationary can all be motivating when your children is writing.
Encourage your child to rehearse their sentence out loud before they write it down.
Always encourage children to punctuate their sentences with a full-stop and capital letter.
Handwriting does not have to be boring! Let children practise drawing letters in sand,
water or paint, or use white boards or blackboards. Pattern books can be fun to do and
allow children to practise mark-making. Children can also make letters using playdough,
pastry or shaving foam.
After making a cake or doing a craft activity, challenge children to write the recipe or
the instructions for someone else to use.
Write an information page or booklet about something they find interesting e.g. spiders,
Dr Who, dinosaurs, cats, etc. Draw a picture and label it.
Our Expectations for writing
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Everyone in school should use joined cursive handwriting which is demonstrated in our
Handwriting policy – Teachers as well!
Children should be able to talk about what they have written.
They should be able to tell you about the punctuation they have used.
They should be able to read their writing back to you and it should make sense.
Writing needs to be well presented.
Unless the teacher tells you otherwise we would like children to write in pencil, this
allows children to edit and change their work as they need to.
We expect children to make an effort to spell words correctly and use taught
strategies, dictionaries, thesaurus, and words books to support them in this.
Talk for Writing
You may have noticed in curriculum booklets that we make reference to Talk for Writing, or
you may have heard your child talk about it, this is a model that we use to teach children the
skills for being good writers.
The model follows three distinct stages:
Stage 1: Imitation - This stage concentrates on talking about the text.
Children will be taught to:
o Learn, perform and internalise stories using actions to support recall
o Learn and use key conjunctions/connectives to build vocabulary
o Play with words
o Create a story or text map
o Understand the key ingredients for the text type being taught
o Box up the text into its component parts using a planning scaffold e.g.
introduction/beginning, build up, dilemma, resolution and conclusion/ending
Stage 2: Innovation – Once the children have internalised the text they can use the structure
and its language patterns to write a new but closely related version, for example, changing
specific elements such as the setting, characters, or events that take place.
Children will be taught to:
o Magpie or steal ideas and vocabulary from a range of authors and each other, to use in
their own writing
o Generate their own ideas
o Plan and organise their writing
o Develop sentence structures to use in their own writing
o Proof read their writing
o Edit and improve their work
Stage 3: Invention/Independent application – At this stage children will apply their learning
independently in English and across the curriculum
Children will be taught to:
o Become ‘experts’ in their subject
o Repeat the previous two stages e.g., draw a text map to sort ideas, box up the text to
plan for writing, rehearse with a partner, draft paragraphs
o Proof read their writing
o Edit and improve their work