AldringtonHome Learning
Children may be taught at school, but much of the most important learning takes place at home.
All children need time and support to work at home. Parents and carers are critical in helping children achieve their potential, and time spent on reading, arithmetic and other activities is richly rewarded for years to come.
On this page, please find resources to help home learning.
Reading
Reading at home is more valuable than any other home learning tasks. Children should read for 15-20 minutes at least five times a week.
Reading for this long will quickly become unsatisfying unless children enjoy what they are reading. Ensure that there is a variety of reading material from different genres, and that it reading remains and enjoyable activity.
Children do not have to read only story books: fact books, newspapers, picture books and poetry can all form part of a varied reading mix. Story books tend to have the richest vocabulary and greatest spark for imaginations and so should predominate, but not exclude all other texts.
Children will learn to love reading if they see adults at home engage with reading. It is always valuable to read stories to children, such as at bed time. Share the reading also - swapping the reader every page or so. Talk about the books your children are reading - and about the books you are reading or read as a child.
Finding Good Books
Make sure your child changes their school book regularly. All classrooms have excellent bookshelves with age-appropriate texts, and the school library is for everyone.
Hove Library (Church Road) and the Jubilee Library (Brighton) hold many books for children. It's free to join and borrow from libraries.
The Book Trust curates an up to date and easily searchable book list.
Resources for Reading
- Book Review KS1
- Book Review KS2
- Four Questions for Any Book
- PPT 2023 Autumn parent mtg
- Talking about Story Books
Writing
All children are writers, and the more they read the more adventurous their writing. At Aldrington, we encourage children to write freely and independently, as well as to guidelines and criteria.
At home, it is particularly valuable for children to write their own compositions spontaneously and without limits.
For children's writing, only two criteria are pre-eminent: the audience and genre of the writing. Encourage children to think about who they are writing for - themselves, parents/ carers, friends, teachers or even the general public. Children's writing is also improved if they can think through the genre and therefore conventions to adopt: is this a newspaper, short story, poem, postcard, advert, fairy tale, etc.
Teaching staff are always keen to see written work that children have completed outside school - so bring it in!
Resources for Writing
Story starter for every day of the year
Handwriting
Pen grip
Sharp pencil
Ascenders & descenders
> Example video
> Handwriting sheets
Spelling
> techniques
> Statutory word list
> spelling rules
Maths
Early counting & cardinality
Real life / around the house
Power Maths?
TTR
> Calc policy, etc