As educators we believe in an approach to literacy that provides a balance of explicit instruction combined with opportunities for curiosity and meaningful experiences in many forms. A strong focus so far this year has been on supporting children to develop a positive mindset toward developing key literacy skills including reading and writing. Through the establishment of a culture where mistakes are celebrated and bravery encouraged we have noticed children more readily giving writing a go independently. We have begun to explore what happens in our brains when we practice a skill and the importance of strengthening pathways that will help us to read and write with ease. We are noticing that helping children to see the ‘why’ is having a positive impact on their motivation and achievements this is something we will continue to explore.
Below are some examples of the literacy in its many forms in our neighbourhood so far this semester.
You can support your child at home by doing the following:
Read to and with your child daily
Practice identifying sounds and blending sounds to read unknown words (decoding) and sounding out words when writing (encoding).
Practice accurately forming each letter when writing (over the last few weeks we have been focusing on s, a, t, i, p and n).
Our next group of letters include c, k, d, h, r, m, e.
*You can find a guide to letter formation in the Home Learning section of our blog 🙂