Dear parents/carers of children in Key Stage 1,
At Redhills, we are committed to ensuring that your child has access to the best possible learning opportunities, whether at home or in school. As you know, early reading skills are among the most important a child must learn and success in this area requires regular practice.
While your child is at home, they should spend some time practising their phonics everyday. To support with this, we recommend the Speed Sounds lessons by Read Write Inc, which can be accessed on any device at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCo7fbLgY2oA_cFCIg9GdxtQ.
In this scheme, sounds are organised into three Sets, which is slightly different to what the children are used to. However, we will be rolling out Read Write Inc across the school from September, so the children will benefit from some experience of the programme in preparation for this.
We recommend that Reception children (and Nursery if possible) watch the Set 1 Speed Sounds lesson each weekday. Year 1 and 2 children should watch both the Set 2 Speed Sounds lesson and the Set 3 Speeds Sounds lesson each weekday. The two sessions can be spread out across the day (one in the morning and one in the afternoon). If your child is in Year 2 and reads Purple, Gold or White books, they will have some spelling activities to do daily instead.
Videos go live at the following set times each weekday, and are available for 24 hours so you can easily slot them into your daily schedule. Research shows that children generally work best in the morning, so we recommend that your child practises their phonics after breakfast.
Set 1 Speed Sounds lesson- 9.30am
Set 2 Speed Sounds lesson- 10am
Set 3 Speed Sounds lesson 10.30am
Children should also spend a short amount of time (10 min each day) reading to an adult. Your child will have 5 books in their current home learning pack which are at their reading level. Please remember that it is beneficial for children to read books several times, in order to develop fluency. We are currently working on ways to ensure that children continue to have access to a range of texts at the appropriate level while they are at home. We will be in touch in due course to share these with you.
If you have any concerns or queries, please do get in touch and we will be happy to help.
Many thanks for your continued support,
Miss Lyons (clara.lyons@acexcellence.co.uk) and Ms Parsons (claudia.etherton@acexcellence.co.uk)