Helping your child with Writing

Show your child that you value their writing by putting it on the wall as you would a picture.

Encourage them to write at home with day-to-day things, e.g. shopping lists, notes, cards or phone messages.

Talk to them about their writing; Who is it for? Ask about the details of the story - Who is in it? What happens to them? How does it end?

Help them to understand where and when to use capital letters and full stops.

When writing encourage them to use a range of connectives instead of "and" such as "so" and "because".

Practice writing at home using joined legible handwriting.

Helping your child with Spelling

Learn spellings using the "say, look, cover, write, check" method.

• Say the word
• Look at the word
• Cover it up
• Write it
• Check to see if it is correct

Remember that some words will need to be learnt as whole words, they cannot be spelt out. These words are called tricky words.

Practise the common exception words recommended for your child's year group. (See Children/Spelling)

Learn spellings for a few minutes each night.

Keep back-tracking over words which may have been learnt some time earlier as children tend to forget how to spell them. Particularly when they start to use them in their writing as they have other things to think about too.

Try to make it as enjoyable as possible.