Helping Your

Primary

One Child

at

home

Helping Your Primary 2

Child at home

Writing Think of a word. E.g. round. Ask your child to stretch the word and count how many sounds are in it. r – ou – n - d = four sounds Together work out which letters we use to write each sound. found ou and th are sometimes called best friends (or digraphs). The two letters together make one sound. Put the word in a short sentence. E.g. The earth is round. Say the sentence several times. Work out how to write each word. Stretch and count the sounds in each word, then work out how to write it If your child would like to write more, try to extend the sentence. ‘Can you tell me more about the earth?

The earth is round and it spins around the sun. Can your child add an adjective or adverb to describe the noun (name) or the verb (action)? The earth is round and it slowly spins around the hot sun.

Helping your Child at home Primary Three

Exploring Words You could write letters on Lego blocks, milk bottle tops, or bits of card. Remember to write together, letters which are ‘best friends’ (digraphs). Best friends might include:

ch, sh, th, ng, ay, ee, igh, ow, oo Here are some activities that you could try. Think of a word and break it into sounds.

f – ee – t Put the sound onto bottle tops, Lego, cards etc.

f ee t f oo Scramble up the bottle tops and ask you child to try to make the mystery word. Add some more letters, and change one or more sounds at a time, and ask him to build the new word.

tree – free – feet – foot – root Write a sentence on card and cut it up. Tell your child what the sentence is and see if he can use the cards to build up the sentence. You could add a few more words and ask your child to build up another sentence.

Reading to your Child Try to read to your child for a short time each day. Make predictions together as you read. You can predict using the front cover and ask your child to think about what they already know and what might happen. Don’t forget to stop and predict as you go through the story. Look back at the end and decide if your predictions were correct. On another day, try to retell the story. Who were the characters? Where did the story take place? How did the story begin? What was the problem in the story? How did the story end? Ask your child to come up with a question about the story for you to answer. Remember to notice and discuss punctuation as you read together.

Hearing your Child Read Sit in a quiet place with as few distractions as possible. Let your child hold the book and turn the pages. Look at the front cover. Ask your child to predict what the story may be about. Ask your child to think about what they already know about the book of the topic, and what it reminds them of. Ask your child to start reading the first page. If your child makes a mistake or is stuck, help them to sound out the letters and then say the word again. Break the word down into sounds. e.g. j-a-ck-e-t = jacket Ask your child a question about the story and ask them to think of a question to ask you. Discuss parts of the book: the blurb, the front cover, the index, the contents page. Talk about the different between fiction and non-fiction.

Try a word Sort Think of a sound, which can be spelled in different ways e.g. ee and ea. Think of some words which have these sounds in. e.g. beach, tree, see, bee, teach, and reach. Write each word on a different piece of card. Ask your child to read and then sort the words into two groups, one for ee words and one for ea words. Try a timed word sort. See if your child can beat his first time sorting out the words. Read the words out loud to your child and ask them to write them down in two columns, the ee column or the ea column.

Helping Your Child at Home – Primary Four

Exploring Words

By now your child will be familiar with the 44 of the most common sounds and some of the alternative ways to spell the sounds e.g. ea and ee. Two or more letters which make one sound are known as best friends’ (diagraphs) together. Best friends might include sh, ch, th, ng, ay, ee, igh, ow, oo, ar, or, air, ur, er. Here are some activities you could try: Word Sort - Think of a sound, e.g. ph and gh. Think of some words with each of those sounds e.g. photo, graph, phone, laugh, rough and dolphin. Write a word on each card. Ask your child to read and then sort the words into two groups. Once your child can confidently sort the words into two groups, try a timed word sort. How quickly can your child sort the words and can your child beat the time? Rhyming Sort – Choose a word e.g. laugh. Try to think of 10 rhyming words (where possible). Sort the words into different groups depending on spelling e.g. graph, giraffe, half, behalf, calf. Grow a sentence – Choose a word and ask your child to put it in a simple sentence e.g. I took a photo. Ask your child who/what/where to extend the sentence. Say the sentence out loud and then ask your child to write it down. E.g. I took a photo of my mum at the funfair.

Reading with your Child Before Reading

*Predict using the front cover, blurb, images, scanning the contents page, scanning the text. This helps your child to think about what they already know. *Discuss prior knowledge – Talk to your child about what they already know about the topic/whatever they are reading. This helps to support their understanding. *Discuss anything they would like to find out or anything they are curious or puzzled about. *Question – Ask your child a question or ask them to come up with a question which they hope will be answered. I wonder…can be a useful way to start a question

During Reading *Connect to own experiences – Can your child relate anything they have read or heard to their own experiences? *Revisit Predictions – Look back at the predictions made before reading. Were they correct? What do you think now? *Infer – What can your child work out what the author is trying to hint at or tell us? *Visualise – Ask your child to draw a picture of a sentence or paragraph from the story or text.

After Reading *Revisit Predictions – What did your child predict before reading? What does he/she think now? *Retell/summarise – Ask your child the main idea of the text. If it is a story, it might be useful to start by looking at the 5 finger retell hand. *Questions – Was the question your child asked before reading answered? Does your child have any more questions which still need to be answered?

Writing

Here is an easy way to encourage your child to write a short story: Most fictional stories follow the same pattern. We are introduced to a character, the character has a problem, the character solves the problem and the story ends! Pupils can come up with their own 5 sentence story using the 5 following words/phrases – one day,… later that day,… unfortunately,… luckily,… in the end,… This can then progress onto: In a land far away,… one sunny afternoon,… to his amazement,… luckily,… in the end,….

Helping Your Child at Home – Primary Five

Reading with your Child

Before Reading *Predict using the front cover, blurb, images, scanning the contents page, scanning the text. This helps your child to think about what they already know. *Discuss prior knowledge – Talk to your child about what they already know about the topic/whatever they are reading. This helps to support their understanding. *Discuss anything they would like to find out or anything they are curious or puzzled about. *Question – Ask your child a question or ask them to come up with a question which they hope will be answered. I wonder…can be a useful way to start a question

During Reading

*Connect to own experiences – Can your child relate anything they have read or heard to their own experiences? *Revisit Predictions – Look back at the predictions made before reading. Were they correct? What do you think now? *Infer – What can your child work out what the author is trying to hint at or tell us? *Visualise – Ask your child to draw a picture of a sentence or paragraph from the story or text.

After Reading

*Revisit Predictions – What did your child predict before reading? What does he/she think now? *Retell/summarise – Ask your child to think about who, what, where, when, how and why? You can also use the words – someone, wanted, but, so, then

10 Ways to Explore Words

Choose a sound or spelling pattern to focus on with your child. Let’s look at the ‘ow’ sound and let’s start with the word grow.

Say and stretch it – grow – g-r-ow

Count the sounds – g-r-ow – 4 sounds

Write it down

Grow the word – growing, grower, growbag,

outgrow, growth, regrow.

Talk about the meaning – discuss the meaning of

the words you have grown.

Write it in a sentence –e.g. I grow plants in my

garden.

Extend the sentence – e.g. I grow sunflowers and

potatoes in my garden.

Rhyming words – Think of 5 words which rhyme

with grow and sort them into groups depending on

their spelling e.g. grow, throw, toe, elbow, Munro

Look at word endings or beginnings – Choose a

grown word which has a word beginning or ending

(prefix or suffix) e.g. regrow – what letters do we

find at the start? What do the letters re mean? Can

you think of any other words which begin re?

Grammar – Is the word a noun, verb, adjective,

pronoun etc.?

Writing

Some easy ways to encourage your child to write:

*Most fictional stories follow the same pattern. We are

introduced to a character, the character has a problem, the character solves the problem and the story ends! Pupils can come up with their own 5 sentence story using 5 of the following words/phrases: once upon a time, one day, first, then, next, after that, after a while, a moment later, the next day, meanwhile, soon, at the moment, suddenly, unfortunately, unluckily, although, however, as soon as, now, finally, eventually.

*Random Word Story - Choose a book. Ask your child for a

page number. Now ask for another number to give you a line. Then ask for a small number – this selects a word. Use the same method to choose two or three words. Can your child make up a sentence using those words? The next steps will be to ask your child to write one sentence for each word to make a paragraph length story.

*Write a story for a

younger child or sibling. Think of a well-known story and create a story map for the story (see picture below). Use the story map to practice performing and retelling the story. Once your child is confident in telling the story, try changing some elements of the story to create a new story e.g. characters, setting, problem etc.

Helping your Child at Home – Primary Six/Seven

Reading with your Child

Before Reading *Predict using the front cover, blurb, images, scanning the contents page, scanning the text. This helps your child to think about what they already know. *Discuss prior knowledge – Talk to your child about what they already know about the topic/whatever they are reading. This helps to support their understanding. *Discuss anything they would like to find out or anything they are curious or puzzled about. *Question – Ask your child a question or ask them to come up with a question which they hope will be answered. I wonder…can be a useful way to start a question

During Reading

*Connect to own experiences – Can your child relate anything they have read or heard to their own experiences? *Revisit Predictions – Look back at the predictions made before reading. Were they correct? What do you think now? *Infer – Can your child work out what the author is trying to hint at or tell us? *Visualise – Ask your child to draw a picture created from a page or chapter in their book.

After Reading

*Revisit Predictions – What did your child predict before reading? What does he/she think now? *Retell/summarise – Ask your child to think about who, what, where, when, how and why? You can also use the words – someone, wanted, but, so, then. For Non Fiction, summarise the main idea in a sentence and then write down 4 key details to back this up.

Morphology – Exploring Words

Choose a sound or spelling pattern to focus on with your child. Let’s look at the word joy. *Say, stretch it, count it and write it - joy *Grow the word – overjoyed, joyfulness, enjoyment, enjoyable, unenjoyable, unenjoyably *Talk about the meaning – discuss the meaning of the words you have grown. *Rhyming words – Think of 5 words which rhyme with joy e.g. employ, enjoy, deploy, destroy, overjoy, unemployed *Pick one of the words and talk to your child about how the spelling changes when we add an ending/suffix to the word. Some of these words have more than one suffix – ed, ful, ness, able. Think of other words which end with the same suffix. Can your child think of any other ness or ful words? *Look at any prefixes and decide how the meaning of the word changes when we add the prefix un – unenjoyable, unenjoyably. Un is another way of saying not, e.g. the party was unenjoyable, it was not enjoyable. Think of other words which start with the prefix un. Can your child think of any other un words?

Writing

Some easy ways to encourage your child to write: *Most fictional stories follow the same pattern. We are introduced to a character, the character has a problem, the character solves the problem and the story ends! Pupils can come up with their own 5 sentence story using 5 of the following words/phrases – once upon a time, one day, first, then, next, after that, after a while, a moment later, the next day, meanwhile, soon, at the moment, suddenly, unfortunately, unluckily, although, however, as soon as, now, finally, eventually. *Expand a Simple Story – Take a simple story such as the Boy Who Cried Wolf. A boy has to look after sheep on the hillside. He is warned by his Mum and the villagers to watch out for a wolf. The boy keeps calling ‘wolf’ when there is no wolf to play a trick on his mum. He does this many times. One day a wolf does appear but the villagers ignore the boy’s call for help. The sheep get eaten and the boy is in trouble. Develop the story by adding details, description of the setting and characters. Start your sentences in different ways and add lots of interesting vocabulary. Draw a story map to match your expanded story. Then change elements of the story to make your own story. Instead of ‘The Boy who Cried Wolf’, ‘The Girl who Cried Lion’ or more inventive ‘The Girl who Told Too Many Lies’.

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