Monday 10 October 2016

New Territory - Homework

Granted, they don't get much homework in reception class that they are required to do every day but they do have a little bag of 'goodies' to aid their learning and to help support what they are doing at school, at home. In the bag Finley has come home with is some reading books, laminated activity sheets to aid them in their writing and some activity sheets on the letters that they are learning at school.

The books that are coming home at the moment don't have words in as they are teaching them to study the pages as this is a great starting block for them to help with their reading. They have said that when children struggle with words they will search the pages for clues so if we start off with this they are building a great starting block. Finley loves listening to books before bedtime but has never shown any interest in reading them himself, until now. Since he started school he has been picking up books and making up the story from memory and from the pictures, a huge development leap I feel.

We were told not to push homework as they want learning to be fun so I tried to read with Finley one evening after tea and he really wasn't that interested. I didn't want to push it as he was tired and had been at school all day. so we put the books away and I said we would try another day. The next morning he woke up and once he was ready for school wanted to read his book, which I was very pleased to oblige with so we sat down and he read us the story. I had seen from his reading record book that he had already read this book and he read it to us with ease. He knew from the pictures and memory what the gist of the story was and read it brilliantly to us.


The next day he was very keen to do some more work from his folder so we got out the laminate card with his name on and he wrote this by following the arrows and numbers to show him how to write his letters properly. He was then very keen to do his numbers so I got the laminated card out for this and we went through this together.

He has also since read the other book which after I described the story from the pictures, he from memory did the say.

All if these have been in the morning once he is dressed and ready for school. This seems to be the time he is more interested in it and will engage in the activity properly. I make sure the television is off and there are no distractions. I also praise him for every little things he does as I feel this will make him want to learn more and for me at the age of 5 everything they do learn is huge for them!

This is all new territory for me and the prospect of homework fills me with dread but at the moment things are going great. When it comes to homework I don't want to interfere too much and I also want to help, I think I am going to have to find the balance between the two as we go on.

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