Home practise of letters

[green hippo]

My son has come home from school today with a reading folder with a few keywords, a letter formation jotter and a letter. The letter states: You can help at home by practising formation of letters with your child...the more time given to practising (spelt practicing) the more confident and independent writers the children will become.

This jotter is a lined jotter with 2 letters per page. So my initial though is: or this will put them off for life thinking that writing is BORING! My son was 4 in late August so may find lots of writing tiring and might need a bit more inspiration to give it a try.

What do you think?

Edited October 7, 2014 by green hippo

[Panders]

Y

A

W

N!!!

and I've found the sickliest colour to type in, because I want to be sick! What are they doing to our youngest children at some schools. How about printing off some ABC Does pages and giving them to the Reception Teacher - and if you can face it discuss different options.

[catma]

Ignore jotter, get out the cornflour. Find sticks in the garden and make your own markers. Play and develop a fluidity of GM and FM skills at the same time.

Do what you would do with the children in your daily care at work.

Cx

[Upsy Daisy]

Get him to take and print photos of all the lovely ways he has practised letter formation, then he can take them in and proudly show the to his teacher B)

[Guest]

Oh dear

I confess to sending home an information sheet so that parents know how we form letters in school so they can talk about ' round up and down', but please please use all the fun ways - paintbrushes with water, an old washing up liquid bottle, even shaving foam on the side of the bath - alongside a reminder of the 'patter' should he decide that he does want to write any letters.

I am a reception teacher - it's terribly hard sometimes at this time of year when 30 little souls all decide to be 'needy' at the same time to remember that they are only just 4. 4 sounds so much more grown-up than 3 somehow!!

[Susan]

I think its so sad that schools are still pressurised to do this. Its not impossible that this poor teacher is just following school policy, after all you chose the school so what did you think then?

[Guest]

agree with Catma and Upsy Daisy beat me to the response!

Please please say you'll do it!

 

Interestingly Community Playthings are sending out FREE books to give to staff and parents in the fight against all the things that are robbing children of their childhoods - we should all pledge to change just one persons mindset about one thing and watch the ripple flow :1b

[Beau]

The shame of it is that many parents will make their children do them thinking they are doing the best for them.

[Stargrower]

 

. 4 sounds so much more grown-up than 3 somehow!!

 

It does, but only because "we" have made it that way! :1b

Some four year olds in school were three only a few weeks ago, and two only a few months ago! They need time, time and more time to acquire these skills in interesting, fun, challenging ways.

I would highly recommend the Community Playthings offer of free copies of "Their Name is Today". You can order as many as you like for staff and parents. It's an interesting read!

[green hippo]

Yes! I'll do it!

Susan: The school is great apart from this one teacher. She had my elder son in Nursery. He wouldn't speak to her and at parents evening all she wanted to show me was a lot of pieces of tracing paper on which he had to practise his name! She also wrote in his report that he showed no interest in imaginative play but we couldn't get to school without him following some sort of map or going on an adventure (I complained about his report as I felt it didn't represent him!) My son has also struggled with his pencil grip and control since Nursery!

I know this isn't school policy but just her way! I am worried for my little one as he is so young. Other mums have also commented that she doesn't like boys!

Anyway...the little pest decided that he WANTED to do his letters and I actually had to stop him doing the whole book! Fortunately he has naturally developed a good and effective grip and produced some excellent letters!!!!

[Guest lillybeth]

My grandchild has just started reception class I have started to help it is heartbreaking to watch the children being given pieces of paper told to cut a circle out to put glue around the shape and then told to place (cut up by the TA) pieces of paper around the face for a beard then told to put on a nose mouth and eyes and then told to cut out a hat and told to put paper at the top for a pompom. This sort of adult directed activity serves no purpose what so ever my grandchild is very creative and this sort of activity (went out with the ark) is totally pointless as we all know the only person being creative is the adult, but at least she had the satisfaction of ticking names off her check-list and also seeing 30 matching pictures !!!

[tish501]

This is the spark that started me on the road to my own nursery...helping at my daughters' playschool ' at Christmas 25 years ago.....'glue this blue bit there....then this white bit there......these dots are eyes.....there! you made a Mary with a baby on the donkey ! '

I thought we had moved on from there....my granddaughter, 4 on Aug 11,started school 25 days later.......luckily formed letters,wrote her name,loved to get messy with all manner of malleable stuff....(shaving foam her favourite).....but all learned at my nursery.Lower ratios we know...

perhaps schools cannot be as flexible as us...her class has 2 staff with 30 children...can u imagine shaving foam in the room...

A few weeks ago she was nurtered with 1-8 .......

[Guest]

Yes! I'll do it!

Anyway...the little pest decided that he WANTED to do his letters and I actually had to stop him doing the whole book! Fortunately he has naturally developed a good and effective grip and produced some excellent letters!!!!

go you, littlegreenhippo!!

Could you write a comment on a note slipped inside his book saying how well he had done because he had all the pre-writing experiences such as blah blah blah

You must be a tad frustrated if you've already had experience of this teacher

[Guest lillybeth]

tish I did the same 25 years ago my son born 31st August made me go back to my roots and I set up my nursery in the local village hall unfortunately we moved on to the local school site and then the new head made me redundant. I agree it is totally a different situation in school with 2 adults to a ratio of 30 and the staff are under so much pressure to show progress for Ofsted and to do everything they need to, but I too thought we had moved on from 30 identical objects.

[Running Bunny]

My son started in Reception in September and has started bringing home Jolly Phonics sheets (but they don't have to write or colour on them) they are prompts for parents; he also has the accompanying flashcard (argh!) However, we practise them by putting them on cushions on the floor and he stands on the sofa and jumps on them whilst saying them or we put them at the bottom of the stairs and he jumps off the bottom step onto them!

There is also another sheet that comes home with a large letter in the middle i.e. t. The t is a train track (can you see where this is going) and there is a green dot where you start and a red where to finish. In the picture there are lots of 't' words. Now, whilst this seems really horrible, Daniel does enjoy playing I Spy, singing the JP song and being a train on the letter.

Over the summer he had no interest whatsoever in letters, sounds or writing, but now he is always on the lookout for them in the environment and will sit and write pages of letters for his own enjoyment (like when he first gets up with his sister). I also know that they have other methods of doing mark making in school that the children access, so I'm not concerned that this is the only way they do it.

I guess the challenge for teachers is getting the message to parents as some still expect flashcards etc as they don't know any different, it's those that challenge the norm that might actually make the difference one day!

[Guest]

This is so sad and as for the "production line" artwork, I despair! The attached poem says it better than I could ever hope to.

The Little Boy.docx

Edited October 15, 2014 by katkat1972

[Guest]

This is so sad and as for the "production line" artwork, I despair! The attached poem says it better than I could ever hope to.

I have been looking for this poem for the past 25 years! I first heard it on a Diploma in Pre-school Practice course. THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! :wub:

[green hippo]

Hi all,

a little update for yourselves.

I have done writing in different ways with my son AND have written about it in his home book as well as sending in a 'Wow' moment in about it!

Now onto my next issue: up until today he has not had a reading book! After learning the names of the Oxford Reading Tree characters (which as least was given to use as a bingo game) he has had the next set of 15 key words to learn (only 3 are tricky words). He has just about got these, just getting mixed up between in, is, it at times. He hasn't even been given a book without words.

When I was in reception (and this is also what the reception teacher of my current school does) I sent books without words home soon into the first half term to allow children to start sharing books at home with their parents and start talking about books. Then as they started learning the key words, we would send home the first set of books with words. For me this allows children to reinforce the keywords they are learning? Yes, children do have to know these keywords and practise them but is it really necessary for them to know 21 words before getting a book of any kind?

I asked for his book, saying that he is bored of doing keywords and believe me, we have done every 'game' known to man to practise without just showing cards 1 after another. The teachers reply was "I know it's a bit boring but the only way to be fluent is to keep practising. Don't usually give books until children move to 2B keywords." I can't believe she actually said it's ok for it to be boring! I always say as an early years teacher my job is to make learning FUN and if I don't, I'm not doing my job properly! And, my son is just about ready for 2B words anyway!

Just wondering what you all think about reading books and keywords!?

Green Hippo xxx

[Guest]

Yes, books without words are brilliant for getting the story-telling and reading behaviours going - I wonder if the school has any available? There doesn't seem to be a great range of good ones when I have a look at the various schemes.

Yes, recognising tricky words is useful as their recognition in text builds confidence.

We usually send word-free books (lilac band) home while working on phase 1, then begin to send pink band books as we work through phase 2 and children gain confidence in segmenting and blending, and recognising tricky words. We encourage use of phonics in reading high-frequency words, not sight recognition as a first strategy, though it is great when that comes along!

It's a real labour of love to match each reading book exactly to each child's next step, especially when reading individually with children twice a week, but we really do try.

Can you take a look at the school's reading policy - may be available on the website?

[green hippo]

He has been sent a book home today on my request! He has read it with me - I helped him blend 'and' otherwise he knew the words. He has then read it a number of times over independently, pointing to each word.