Ashdene Pre-School
Learning At Home
"Evidence suggests that parental involvement in early learning has a greater effect on children’s well-being and achievement than any other factor, such as family income, parental education or school environment."
We recognise children’s learning doesn’t end at Pre-School and we have introduced several initiatives to support learning at home. At parents evening your key person will discuss individual ways to learn at home.
Library
We run a Pre-School library. You can purchase a book bag for your child to bring home one of our books to share with you to encourage a love of reading from an early age. Your child can change their book as often as they want to.
Rhyme challenge
We take part in the Bookstart rhyme challenge. Each week we will learn one rhyme which parents can help practice at home. ‘Use of nursery rhymes with young children promotes positive attitudes towards language learning and helps children to build an awareness of sound patterns of language. Children who have an awareness of rhyme are well equipped to develop their reading’ (Bookstart: 2012)
Borrow bags
We have a growing selection of borrow bags. Parents are welcome to take these bags home. Each bag contains an activity which supports a different area of learning such as mark making or letters and sounds. Your key person may send a borrow bag home to share with your child to support an area of learning.
Magic moments
We ask parents to tell us of any observations you have seen of your child’s learning at home. These ‘magic moments’ are likely to come from the child and happen in play or everyday experiences. Children do not demonstrate their knowledge in test situations so asking children “what colour is this”?, “what shape is this” ? etc. will often produce an inconsistent response. A good example of a magic moment might be the first time you have heard your child counting, mark making 'writing', putting on their own shoes, hearing the initial sound in words, recognising numbers in the environment,
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Please read the document - - to support you in understanding your child’s development in the early years and what information you may wish to share with us.
Communication and language
Communication and language is one of the prime areas of development. It is widely agreed that early language development is critical for future learning and forms the foundations for interacting with other people – for communicating our needs, our thoughts and our experiences. A child needs to hear a word up to 50 times before they can understand and use it ! The average 3 year old hears 20 million spoken words, however this varies greatly. In a language rich and talkative family it can be 35 million and in a much less communicative family it can be less than 10 million. At Pre-School we provide a language rich environment and use resources from programmes such as toddler talk and chatting with children to promote language development. We send home communication resources regularly throughout the year for you to take part in.
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Hungry little minds
All the little things you do with your child – like everyday conversations, make-believe play and reading together – make a big difference to their development. The Hungry Little Minds campaign provides lots of ideas that can help boost your
child’s learning. You can slot them into your routine and your children will love them.
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