Year 4 Parent Workshop

Tuesday 14th January

Writing

•Writing is the best way to talk without being interrupted.

• Jules Renard

Aims

• To help parents support their child at home with Literacy and Numeracy

• To give parents an insight into how progress is writing is measured and current expectations

Speaking and Listening

• Make time.

• Talk about: current issues; interests and hobbies; TV; books and school life.

• Discuss ideas for writing, story plans and characters, and encourage children to share ideas before writing.

Reading

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HI7J3dQatts

• Home reading is vital.

• Home Readers

• Recommended Reading Book List

Writing

• How can I encourage my child to write?

• Write yourself.

• Provide writing materials and somewhere to write.

• Allow them plenty of time.

• Always praise efforts and don’t overly worry about presentation. Allow word processing.

Writing Stamina

• By Year 4 children are expected to write continually for up to 35 minutes.

Progress

• Every child is assigned a level at the end of Year 3.

• During the course of Year 4 we expect every child to make 2 sub-levels progress.

• An average Year 4 child will be a Level 3a by the end of Year 4.

What does a 3a piece of writing look like?

Children can: • Experiment with new punctuation, eg , ! : ( )• Confidently use adjectives and verbs.• Make sure my writing flows (using

connectives)• Have characters in stories who interact.• Consider the purpose of my writing.

For a level 3a your child would need:To have accurate handwriting, spelling and punctuation in all their writing. Their writing shows that there is an awareness of an audience; with a clear narrative structure. Their characters in their writing are well developed and their descriptions are also detailed. Their writing shows a fluent and imaginative style with ideas being extended and developed.

For a level 4c your child would need:Their handwriting is beginning to be fluent, joined and legible and show evidence of adventurous vocabulary. Their use of full stops, capital letters and question marks are usually correct and are beginning to be used within their sentences. Spelling of some polysyllabic words that use regular patterns is being developed. The ideas in their writing are apparent but not quite sustained or developed. They begin to use complex sentences.

How do we level?

• Assessment is by teacher assessment. During each term the children are given several opportunities to write a given task independently.

Sentence Level

The man went up the hill.

• What kind of man and hill? – Adjectives• How did he go up the hill? – Adverbs & more

powerful verbs

The old man climbed up the hill slowly.Slowly, the old man climbed up the steep hill.

Up Levelling a Sentence

Level 2

• I gave the brown dog a bone because he was sad.

Level 3• When the chocolate brown Labrador whined I

gave him a bone.

Up Levelling a Sentence

Level 4 Even though the chocolate brown Labrador, which was very overweight, whined sadly, I didn’t feed him a bone.

Level 5• Despite the pitiful whining of the chocolate brown

Labrador – an overweight example of his breed – I didn’t relent and feed him.

Your Turn!

• I waited outside for the class to finish.

Spellings

• Spelling is taught through spelling patterns.

• Encourage children to spot these patterns.

• Ask children if a spelling ‘looks’ right.

Handwriting

• Consistently joined handwriting

• Handwriting Pen Licences

Writing Opportunities

• Find meaningful ways of giving your child to opportunity to write at home.

• Act as a good role model for your child. Let them see you writing.

• Praise your child’s efforts.• Provide them with lots of writing materials.• Use Talk 4 Writing techniques at home. It is not

always necessary for the child to write down their ideas. (Fortunately/unfortunately)

Numeracy

• Building a child’s confidence is paramount

• Be positive about your own maths abilities. Try to avoid saying "I was never good at maths" or "I never liked maths".

• If your child is worrying about some aspect of Numeracy in school, don’t wait - come into school for advice. The more you understand what we are about, the better you will be able to help your child.

Make Numeracy meaningful and fun

• Measuring their height and work out how much they've grown.

• On car journeys - play number-plate games, add and subtract with road signs, think about speed by dividing distance by time.

• At the shops - weigh fruit and vegetables, budget with pocket money, work out the relative value of products by comparing prices and weight.

• In the kitchen - weigh and measure quantities, talk about temperature and timings.

• Make 3D models and origami shapes.

Learn those number facts!

• Times tables chanting, singing, skipping, computer games etc

• Number bonds – ping pong

• 2d shapes

Number games

• Let’s play some!

• Times tables Bingo• 11s• Splat• Circles game

Homework – our expectations:

• Their homework should be completed to the same standard as their school work and NOT in biro, felt pen or gel pens

• Homework is set on a Wednesday and due in on the following Monday.

• Children will be given 1 piece of Numeracy, 1 piece of spellings and 1 piece of Literacy.

• The purpose of homework is to reinforce the learning that has taken place in class

Thanks for listening

• Any questions?• Slideshow will be put onto the school website

under Mrs Robinson’s class page• Handouts to take home• Any questions please come and see me