So after having a nice week off for half term. I'm back in the swing of things at work. As we are well into the 2nd term at school now my role has really become important. Reception are expected to do alot of reading and writing yet so many of our children are EAL children, which is English as an additional language. they struggle with even understanding what is being expected of them. this is when visual aids are really important and i would use these during carpet time.
The children learn to read and write through phonics. This far into a school year me being the TA takes certain groups out to push them forwards in their phonics and to ensure they aren't behind. I took a group this afternoon, which we were doing CVC words(consonant,vowel,consonant). One of them afterwards said that really helped me. I think it is very important for children to have that extra time when needed.
Recently reception have had to get their childrens assessments done. Reading high frequency words. checking letters, sounds. I feel that children at such a young age shouldn't be expected to know all of this. Alot of them need to be taught in play and social skills yet all that gets lost as for me and the teacher is constantly about having assess and observe. Observing, now thats a whole different kettle of fish, we have to observe three children a week and then do PLOds for them the following week, which are activities to push them. in the mean time the children will be loosing focus as they need guidance but we rarely have time to be model whats right and wrong.