Basic Skills Evening
Miss Scott-1,2,3 Team Leader
Mrs Hehir- Maths Subject Leader
Aims of tonight:
·To familiarise you with the demands of
the New National Curriculum for Spelling,
Grammar and Mental Maths
·To help you understand how we are
supporting children with meeting these
demand in school
·To give you some ideas about how you
can help your children at home
New Curriculum:
·This is the first year that all children have been taught
using the new national curriculum.
·The new curriculum places an increased demand on
children's reading, spelling and mental maths skills
·Skills which were previously taught later have been
moved into the KS1 and Year 3 curriculum.
English:
KS1 curriculum places a big emphasis on children learning to write
accurately in terms of spelling and basic punctuation.
The curriculum is broken down into transcription (spelling and
handwriting), grammar and composition
It is hoped that by the time children leave Year 2 they will be able
to:
·Spell a large range of high frequency words accurately (see list)
·Spell words containing the spelling patterns taught accurately (see
hand out)
·Spell other words using a phonetically plausible attempt
·Write sentences which accurately use full stops, capital letters,
question marks, exclamation marks,commas in lists and apostrophes
for contraction and possession
·Write sentences using when, if , that or because to link ideas
·Name the different parts of a sentence (verb, noun, adjective, adverb)
·Add more excitement to their sentences using adjectives
·Edit and improve their own work by noticing errors
·Write with a legible joined script
Year 3- Once children have secured these basic
skills they then work on using increasingly complex
sentence structures and punctuating them accurately
with commas.
They are taught to use add information in
prepositional phrases (where phrases)
The spelling patterns they are taught become
increasingly complex
The government have published a list of statutory
words which all children should be able to spell by
the time they reach the end of Year 4
Why is it so important to secure these basic skills?
·Fluidity of writing
·Confidence
·Enjoyment
·Enabling complex sentence structures to be
understood later in the school
What is our approach in school?
Spelling
·Children in Year 1 have daily phonics sessions.
·They are introduced to a new sound each week and use this for
reading and writing
·Children use the Read Write Inc cards to learn new soundsthese are available on big sheets for the children to use in the
classroom
·Key words and phonic sounds are up in all classrooms for the
children to access.
·Children are taught explicitly how to orally segment a word and then
blend it back together
eg play - p..l...ay
Years 2 and 3
·Children in Years 2 and 3 have 3 x weekly
spelling sessions
·They will revise the phonic sounds learnt in
Year 1
·A new suffix/ prefix or spelling pattern is
introduced weekly and investigated together
and a set of rules for the pattern are
established
·Children will have some application work to do
in at least one session
What are our expectations for the children applying
their spellings?
·Children are expected to use the sounds they know
in their written work
·We look for phonetically plausible attempts
eg A Year 1 child might spell Rain- rayn
A Year 2 child might spell science sience
·As the children progress through Year 2 and into
Year 3 it is expected that spellings will be
increasingly correct
·Children are expected to spell key words such as
when, what etc correctly in their work once they have
been taught
·Some, but not all, incorrect spellings will be picked
up in marking comments
Punctuation and grammar
Punctuation and grammar are taught within English
sessions
Every three weeks the children learn a new text.
These 'Talk for Writing Texts' include examples of
the grammar and punctuation children are expected
to use
Children will regularly be exposed to the language
of grammar and punctuation and expected to use
and understand it themselves
What words do they need to know?
Verb
Noun
Adjective
Adverb
Plural
Contraction- eg didn't
Apostrophe
Tense
And for Year 3- clause, subordinate clause,
preposition (a where or when phrase) and
conjunction (connecting word)
Handwriting
Handwriting is taught regularly throughout Years 1,2
and 3
·
·It is recorded in books twice a week
·Children begin by working on letter formation
·They will begin to be taught how to join as soon as
formation is secure
·We teach a non- cursive style so tail letters (g, y etc)
are not looped
·It is our aim that all children will be joining their
handwriting by the end of Year 2
What can you do to help?
·Help your child when they are learning their
spellings.
·Spellings will link to what we've been learning
in school
·It is important to look at them regularly
·Look at the patterns with your child- eg ay is
only at the end of a word, ai is always in the
middle- write a list of these rules together
·Encourage your child to write their spellings in
sentence so they see them in context
·Particuarly with Year 1 children, encourage
them to orally segment the words- eg night- n..
igh..t before
writing it down
Look at spellings in indepedent writing but
don't over correct unless they are on a spelling
list- phonetically plausible is good enough!
Some methods/ games which might
help with spelling
Write the spellings out with the key sound/ spelling pattern in
a different colour.
·
·Look, cover, write, check
·Creating mnemonics for trickier words- eg Big, Elephants,
Can, Always, Understand, Small, Elephants
·Use flash cards and look regularly at the words
·Use scrabble tiles to make the words then add up the amount
that each word is worth
·Write the word with the letters scrambled- can they
unscramble it?
·Play hangman with spelling words
·Word ladders- start with a word, change or add one letter
each time- how far can they get?
eg mop, hop, hope, cope, cape, caper
·Boggle- with a grid of letters- how many words can they find?
·Words within words- with a long word- how many smaller
words can they spot within it?
Strategies/ games to support
accurate punctuation
·Encourage your child to spot full stops in their
reading books.
·Encourage them to speak in full sentences as
much as possible.
·Encourage children to read their own writing
aloud. Can they correct their own punctuation?
·Sentence tennis- take it in turns to say a word.
The first person to end the sentence accurately
and put in a full stop wins a point.
·Sentence stacking- start with a noun, add a
verb, add an adjective, add an adverb, add a
preposition and another noun etc e.g. the dog,
the dog ran, the brown dog ran, the brown
dog ran speedily, the brown dog ran
speedily towards the cat.
and finally...
Handwriting.
·There are a series of letter formation and
joining sheets on our 'Help at Home'
section on the website.
·Encourage children to write on the line
·Focus on letters being evenly sized
·For younger children- forming letters in
sand, paint, glitter may help