In our Guided Reading lessons we ask pupils to focus on key aspects of reading.

These include:

• Vocabulary
• Inference
• Prediction
• Retrieval
• Summarising

Below you will find some posters for each Key Stage that highlight the skill, gives some useful strategies to help develop the skill and some sentence stems which can help your child construct their answer:

• Guided Reading Posters – Key Stage 1 (Years 1 and 2)
• Guided Reading Posters – Key Stage 2 (Years 3 – 6)

We use the FFT Success for All Phonics programme to teach your children phonics. This scheme  has been validated by the Department of Education and meets the requirements for the teaching of phonics in schools. Every day your child will have a 25-minute phonics lesson where they will be taught all the skills they need to decode words for reading, and segment words for spelling.

• Tips for Home Reading – Parent Portal
• Helpful Videos
• Parent/Carer Guide to FFT Phonics
• Phonics provision across the school

Key Phonics Terms

Phoneme

The smallest unit of sound in a word is called a phoneme. If you say the word ‘cat’ slowly you can hear 3 phonemes or sounds: /c/ /a/ /t/.

Grapheme

A phoneme written down is called a grapheme.

For example, the letter (grapheme) ‘a’ represents the sound (phoneme) /a/. The word ‘cat’ has three graphemes: the letters ‘c’ ‘a’ ‘t’.

A grapheme may have 1, 2 or 3 letters to make one sound, this is explained below.

Some graphemes represent more than one phoneme. For example, ‘oo’ has two different phonemes (sounds) as in ‘book’ and ‘zoo’.

Diagraph

If a grapheme has 2 letters to make 1 sound, it is called a diagraph.

For example: ‘shut’ has 3 phonemes or sounds: /sh/ /u/ t/. Although there are 4 letters in the word ‘shut’, we say there are 3 graphemes because the letters that make /sh/ go together to make one sound. This is a digraph. The graphemes are ‘sh’ ‘u ‘t’.

Once your child has learned all the single sounds (the alphabet letters), then they will begin to learn digraphs.

Split Diagraph

Split digraphs are digraphs where the grapheme is split up by a consonant.

For example: ‘bake’ has 3 phonemes or sounds ‘b ‘a_e’ ‘k’. When your child writes the ‘a_e’ digraph, it is split because there is a ‘k’ between the ‘a’ and the ‘e’.

Some other split digraphs are: ‘i_e’, ‘o_e’, e-e and ‘u_e’. They make one sound (phoneme) but are split when written.

Trigraph

If a grapheme has 3 letters, it is called a trigraph.

For example: ‘light’ has 3 phonemes or sounds /l/ /igh/ /t/. /igh/ is a trigraph.

Grapheme– Phoneme Correspondence (GPC)

The relationship of the phoneme and the grapheme that represents it and vice versa. To see the grapheme ‘sh’ and know the sound that it will make. Or, to hear the sound /sh/ and know how to write the corresponding grapheme.

At Cheadle Hulme Primary School we aim to foster a love for writing by immersing pupils in high quality texts that ignite and inspire their imaginations. The most important thing you can do at home to support this is to help us develop and encourage their love for reading!

To help show you how we structure our writing units, you can see our 8 Year Overview for English.

Other ways to help:

Handwriting

• Year 1
• Year 2
• Year 3
• Year 4
• Year 5
• Year 6

Spelling

We use the Spelling Shed app to help children practise their spellings at home. We know it can be tricky to navigate and find the word list each week so we’ve put together a guide for parents/carers to help.

The spelling lists for each term are pinned to the top of each year groups’ Instagram account.

At Cheadle Hulme Primary School, we develop a mastery approach to maths, using resources from White Rose Education.

Across the school, we teach maths using small steps that are carefully designed to build knowledge over time.

Key Stage 1 and 2

White Rose Education have produced videos for parents/carers to go alongside each small step. It’s very common for parents/carers to have been taught different methods for working things out, which can make it more difficult to support your child in the way they are currently learning.

To help with this, the small step videos will give you an in depth look at the exact methodology for that lesson.

The video for each relevant small step can usually be found in your child’s home learning as a QR code, but all the small steps can also be found by visiting the White Rose Education website.

The drop down boxes allow you to choose year groups and terms. We currently teach ‘Maths (v3 schemes)’.

Additionally, White Rose have created ‘Maths with Michael’ videos exclusively for parents. These videos are designed to help parents keep up with modern teaching methods. The videos cover the following:

Has maths changed?

1. Place Value
2. Subtraction
3. Multiplication
4. Division
5. Fractions
6. Algebra

The videos can be found on White Rose’s Maths with Michael webpage.

If you would like to provide additional support to your child that aligns with the learning they are doing in school then download these free printable White Rose home learning workbooks for Years 1-6.

Times Tables

At Cheadle Hulme Primary School, we believe recall of times tables facts is an important skill that helps children access many challenging aspects of maths by reducing the cognitive load required to work out component parts of the question.

To help the children learn their times tables, we use an app called Times Table Rock Stars (TTRS). The app can be downloaded from any app store or played in a web browser.

If you would like to know more about the app or how to use it then read our handy TTRS Guide.

Additonally, you may wish to watch TTRS’s video guide on YouTube – What is Times Tables Rock Stars? Parents and Carers Guide

Addtional Apps/Websites

Numbots – designed to develop understanding, recall and fluency in addition and subtraction. This can be downloaded as an app or accessed via a browser.

1-minute maths – designed to build greater number confidence and fluency in subitising, addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. This is available as an app only from any app store.