Tá ag éirí go maith linn anseo i Naíonáin Mhóra, táimid an-ghnóthach agus ag baint taitneamh as ár gcuid oibre.

An tseachtain seo bhíomar ag foghlaim faoi bia agus cóisirí sa Ghaeilge, cruthanna 3T sa mhata agus an Teaghlach Naofa sa Chreideamh lena lán rudaí eile freisin.

Táimid ag dul i dtaithí ar Bhéarla a labhairt agus a chloisteáil ar scoil, tá eolas thíos go thuismitheoirí faoi ag cabhrú le do pháiste le Jolly Phonics sa bhaile.

We are all getting on well here in Naíonáin Mhóra, we are busy and enjoying all our work.  This week we have been learning about food and parties in Irish, 3D shapes in Maths, the Holy Family in religion and lots of other things too.

We are getting used to speaking English at school at English time and there is some information below for parents about helping your child with Jolly Phonics at home.

Jolly Phonics

 

As you know we started English after Christmas.  The children are making great progress with the Jolly Phonics programme.  Here are some hints and tips which might help you with your child at home, some children find phonics very easy and others can find it difficult to differentiate between sounds and to identify the sounds in words.  The more practice the children do with the basic sounds, the easier they will find reading and writing.  If you regularly spend a short time working on the sounds with your child it will really benefit them.

 

The sounds we have covered so far are:

 

S, A, T, I, P

N, C/K, E, H, R,

M, D, G, O, U

 

It is important when you are practicing the sounds with your child to focus on the sound the letter makes, not the name of the letter or the sound it makes in some words; e.g., the letter o makes the sound at the start of on / off, and not open /over.  When your child comes across words where the letter is making a sound other than the one they have learned about, we explain that sometimes the letters make different sounds and we will learn rules about when this happens later on.  Sometimes your child might suggest a word that starts with the sound they are learning about but it is spelled differently., e.g, knee, again we explain that that is a “tricky word” and we’ll be learning about those soon.

 

There are three important skills which the children are learning at the moment:

1. saying the sound that a letter makes when they see the letter
2. writing a sound when they hear it
3. blending the sounds together to read or write simple words.

They can practise these skills at home with some games.  Try to use a mixture of these skills when working on the sounds at home.

 

Here is an example of a few activities you could try at home to develop these skills.

 

Flashcards : “I’ll show you the cards, you say the sound and do the action”

Dictation: “Now we’ll swop, I’ll call out some sounds and you write them down”

Blending:  “I’ll call out a word and I know you have learned all the sounds in the word.  CUP.  There are three sounds in CUP, did you hear them: c..u..p…what are those sounds?  Can you write them down or find them on our flashcards?  Now I’ll put some of the cards together to make a word and you see if you can read it.  PIG –can you say each sound?  Now can you put them together?

 

A little whiteboard works very well for these games, and calling out/writing down the sounds. “Let’s write MUG..m…u…g.  Now can you change mug to mud?  Change mud to mid? etc.

 

Fáilte romhaibh ar ais agus athbhliain faoi mhaise daoibh!  Tá súil agam go raibh laethanta saoire deasa ag gach éinne.  Chuala mé go raibh Daidí na Nollag an-fhlaithiúil ar fad. Bhí sé go hálainn na páistí a fheiceáil arís inniu agus bhí siad an-sásta le bheith ar ais ag obair!

Thosaíomar ag déanamh Béarla inniu agus beimid ag leanúint clár Jolly Phonics.  As seo amach beidh obair bhaile Béarla ag na páistí gach lá, féach thíos, leis an gnáth obair bhaile.

Welcome back and Happy New Year!  I hope everyone enjoyed the holidays.  I heard that Daidí na Nollag was very generous.  It was lovely to see the children again and they seemed very happy to be back ready for work!

We started English today and we will be following the Jolly Phonics programme.  From now on the children will have a little English homework every day as well as their usual Irish/Maths and reading.

Jolly Phonics:  For the next eight weeks we will learn one new sound per day. Each sound has a story, a song and an action.   There is a worksheet with each sound which we will start in school every day and the children finish at home.  Focus on the sound the letter makes, NOT the name of the letter. Ask your child about the song and the action every day as this helps them to remember the sounds.  Help them to read the words on the worksheet that begin with that sound and ask them to think of some more.  You can write some of these words on the worksheet or help the child to write them, the children can show these to the rest of the class the next day.  Today’s sound was s.