Nursery wc 4th March 2013

Maths

This week we will be looking at measure through the story of 'Goldilocks and the Three Bears'. We will be making porridge, looking at the language involved in comparing size and sorting objects according to size. Try to use lots of different words for big and small at home. Choose an object and see if you can find objects that are bigger than/smaller than it.

Phonics

We are moving on to Aspect 7 which is Oral Blending and Segmenting. This week we are focusing on blending sounds together to make words.

Children who can hear sounds in words and sound them out will develop the skills they need to be successful readers and writers. Segmenting and blending individual sounds can be difficult at the beginning so we will begin by segmenting and blending syllables. Once the children are familiar with this we will practice with individual sounds.

Rhyme is an important aspect of blending because it is essentially the blending of a new onset to an old rime, e.g. c-at and h-at. So keep sharing rhyming stories, songs and rhymes at home.

However, for blending, it is better to divide the syllable in a different way, e.g. di-ce, swee-t,

ca-t. When doing this, make sure that after you have segmented the word you blend it together so that your child hears the complete word, e.g. Would you like a swee-t, sweet?

Here are some activities you can do at home to support your child's learning:

Play toy talk with your child where the last word in an instruction would be said in toy talk.

Eg, stand u-p, tap your fee-t, pat your ba-ck, touch your hea-d, wiggle your chi-n, pinch your chee-k.

Try and use toy talk at different times of the day. For example:  if you are on your way out you could ask your child to go and get their coa-t or when they are in the bath ask them to pass the soa-p, before bed ask your child for a ki-ss or a hu-g.

As your child becomes more confident with this you could move on the breaking up the words into their individual sounds, e.g. c-oa-t, k-i-ss, h-u-g.

Top tips for listening:

•  Your child may already be interested in hearing the initial sounds in words and know that sounds the letter makes when written down are called so you can help them by making the links with print in the environment.

•   It is important only to segment (break up) and blend (put back together) the last word in a sentence or phrase and not words that occur at the beginning or middle of the sentence. Over time and with lots of repetition, your child will be able to orally blend and segment words. eg: put your hands on you h-ea-d, touch your f-ee-t.

•  It is very important to pronounce the sounds very clearly and not to add an ‘uh’ to some (e.g.‘ssssssss’ and not ‘suh’, ‘mmmmmmmm’ and not ‘muh’).

 

Come and speak to a member of staff if you want to know more about this. 

I hope you find this useful :-)