Supporting your child at home with Reading
Reading is an essential life skill for SO many reasons: for discovering new information and learning; opening up opportunities; and opening up minds to great stories and adventures – escaping to somewhere new and exciting.
Reading is the foundation of a good education. Children who can read are more likely to succeed in school, more likely to achieve better qualifications and more likely to be employed in adulthood.
It’s hard to overstate the positive impact of reading with your child at home. Research shows that regular reading at home leads to:
- Higher levels of literacy
- Widened vocabulary
- Improved mental wellbeing
- Higher levels of empathy
- A stronger sense of imagination
- Improved sleeping patterns
Research has found that a child who is read one book a day will hear 290,000 more words by age 5 than a child who doesn’t regularly read with a parent or caregiver. As a result, these children have a huge advantage when it comes to starting school. It’s not just about literacy though – taking time to read with a child tells them that they are important and deserving of attention. This has positive effects on confidence and self-esteem.
We expect all children to be reading to an adult regularly at home. In Willow Class children should read daily to an adult at home and a parent should write in the reading record. When children are in KS2 they can write in their own reading records. These will be regularly checked at school. Children who are not yet independent readers will have their books changed weekly.
Some tips for hearing your child read can be found here.
Supporting your child at home with Maths
It can be particularly difficult to know how to support your child with maths at home. Please find below information to help you develop your child’s maths skills at home, which will help them in school and with everyday life.
1. Start with a positive mindset
– try and use positive language about maths around your children. Be as patient as possible and let them know that it is ok to make mistakes.
2. Use maths talk everyday
– whenever you have the opportunity, try to use maths talk in everyday language. Reinforcing counting skills and practising mental arithmetic skills are two areas which can easily be included in conversation. For example, when setting the dinner table ask how many more forks you might need to finish setting the table.
3. Play maths games together
– many games use mathematical and logical skills that your children will need in later life. Even a jigsaw puzzle helps children to develop logical and spatial awareness skills. Board games with dice develop children’s counting skills. Other games that may help develop your child’s maths skills are darts, scrabble, and chess.
4. Practise reading the time
As we move into the digital, many children are growing up not reading analogue clocks. Helping them read clocks in the home, or ones you may walk past on the street, will help them to tell the time in analogue and digital form.
5. Practice times tables and number bonds orally
These are facts that children need to recall to progress with maths so regular recall practice at home will help the children develop automaticity. Online tools can be very useful. Your child has a Times Tables Rock Stars login through school which is sent home. Also, the White Rose One Minute Maths app is free to download from your usual app store and is an excellent way to support key skills.
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