St Margaret Mary's Catholic Infant School

Writing

Writing and reading are part of every aspect of your child’s life and while children do lots of literacy based activities at school (e.g. writing, reading, handwriting, phonics), there are lots of ways that you can support your child at home. This booklet aims to give lots of suggestions and ideas for making writing fun and meaningful at home and improving achievement levels at school.

General Tips and Ideas

The basis of all good writing is good talk. Writing depends on knowing lots of words and being able to join them together in interesting ways. Encourage your child/ren to: -
explain a game or activity describe a person, place, picture or thing retell stories talk about things they have done e.g. visits, day at school - encourage detail predict what might happen next in a story, TV programme or sequel to a film play word games
Be a reading model and read to your child (e.g. stories, poems, factual information such as timetables, magazines, newspaper reports, letters, emails, adverts, instructions) – discuss the ways authors use words to shape their ideas.
Be a writing model and encourage your child to write alongside you for real purposes e.g. shopping lists, birthday/Christmas lists, labels, invitations, thank you letters, emails to friends, postcards, cards for relatives, scrap books of holidays/hobbies/special events, diaries, posters for real events, short stories or poems for family members, menus, texting, bedroom or house rules.

Letters and Sounds (Phonics)

Phonics refers to the sounds letters make on their own or in combination with other letters. The school’s chosen approach to phonics is through teaching ‘Letters and Sounds.’ From their first days in nursery and reception the children will be encouraged to listen to the sounds in words and will begin to link these sounds to letters. This is an important aspect of learning to read and is taught daily throughout the school in class, small groups and sometimes individuality.