September 2021

• When your child is reading aloud, encourage them to use the pictures, the rest of the sentence and phonetic clues to read words.
• Point out the punctuation in a sentence, e.g. full stops, speech marks, exclamation marks.
• Take turns in reading longer stories.
• Discuss your child’s favourite words and phrases.
• When reading non-fiction books use the contents page and index to find information.
• Talk about the main event and compare it to your child’s own experiences, e.g. Remember when we went to the…
• Talk about the character’s thoughts and feelings.
• Point out obvious story language across a range of books, e.g. ‘All fairy tales start with Once Upon a Time…’
• Re-read stories and poems so that your child becomes familiar with them and can retell them.

Fiction

• When and where did the story take place?
• Which word tells you that…?
• What did…do?
• Which words tell you about the setting?
• What do you think is going to happen next?
• What do you think will happen at the end of the story?
• What is your favourite part of the story and why?
• Why did the author use that word?
• Can you retell me the ending of this story?

Non-fiction

• How can we find information in this book?
• What features can we use? What is the glossary for?
• How does the first line in each paragraph help the reader?
• How does the picture help us to understand?

What is Book Week?

Please find below details of free online resources that may be of interest to you to use at home with your child. The resources cover Maths, Reading, English and Science.

Oxford Owl:    http://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/for-home/
(free to use but you need to register as a parent first) 

Family Maths Toolkit:  www.familymathstoolkit.org.uk/

I am Sam Kelly, the Family Learning Assistant here at Colquhoun Park. I am here to support our families to be part of the school community and their children's education. Family Learning is so important, as we at Colquhoun Park recognise the vital role parents and guardians have as the first educators of our pupils. 

Look out for monthly activities you can participate in together via seesaw and hopefully soon I will be able to invite families into the school to join in with fun activities together.  

I am also here to support our families with issues such as applying for benefits, financial worries, emotional and wellbeing support, finding employment and how to eat healthier and be more active, amongst many other things. 

I would be interested to know what you would like from me this year.  I look forward to getting to know you all, as we work together in your child’s education.

Feel free to contact me for more information or assistance, I am in school every day 8.45am-3.15pm. You can either catch me in the playground, call the office on 0141 955 2258 or email me at skelly@colquhounpark.e-dunbarton.sch.uk .