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Link to WCC support page for Speech and Language.

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Link to WCC support page for Speech and Language.

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Speech, Language and Communication – Warwickshire County Council

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This page contain ideas of how to support your child with fine motor skills and sensory differences at home.

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Occupational Therapy (Children) :: South Warwickshire University NHS Foundation Trust

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Based on the 5 point scale - Download click the link below

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If your family member or the person you support has meltdowns, find out how to anticipate them, identify their causes and minimise their frequency.

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Transition Tips for going to a new school or secondary school - Young Minds.

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Ways to support your child with regulating.

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Ways to support your child with regulating.

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Ways to support your child with regulating

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Social and Emotional games to play at home.

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Social and Emotional games to play at home.

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Social and Emotional games to play at home

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Link to online matching memory game for Lego

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Link to online matching memory game for Lego

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Play a free online LEGO® Memory Game and pair up all the LEGO characters to complete the game. Have fun for hours!

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maths methods explained for different ages.

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Chart to indicate how someone is feeling.

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Chart to indicate how someone is feeling.

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Guide for supporting young people with bereavement.

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Guide for supporting young people with bereavement.

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Example sensory circuit info and ideas for home

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Maintaining mental well-being from National Autistic Society.

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Maintaining mental well-being from National Autistic Society.

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Maintaining Well-being from National Autisitc Society

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Advice on supporting mental health and well-being for your child

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Advice on supporting mental health and well-being for your child

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There are lots of way to feel calmer. Try our breathing exercises, activities and games or watch a video to help let go of stress.

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Word games for families and audio book links.

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Word games for families and audio book links.

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Tips for managing anxiety

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Ways to support your child's language development

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Ways to support your child's language development

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Any time is a good time to help your child learn language and literacy skills! Hanen Tips for Parents can help you turn any activity you do with your child into an opportunity to build his skills - and to have fun while you're doing it!

All Hanen tips are based on current research which shows that parents have the power to boost their children's language and literacy development when they:

Hanen Tips for Parents are divided into three sections based on particular stages of language development, so choose the option below that best describes what your child is doing now.

Tips for parents of young children who communicate without words

These tips are for parents of children who communicate using a combination of sounds, gestures (e.g. pointing, shaking head for "no", waving "bye") and eye gaze (looking at you and then at what he is "talking" about). These children are sending clear messages, just not with words.

Tips for parents of children who have just started talking

These tips are for parents of children who have started to use single words or who have started to put two words together (e.g. "dog" or "Mommy go")

Tips for parents of children who talk in sentences

These tips are for parents of children who talk in sentences consisting of a few or many words.

The most important part of using Hanen tips is to have fun with your child!

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Any time is a good time to help your child learn language and literacy skills! Hanen Tips for Parents can help you turn any activity you do with your child into an opportunity to build his skills - and to have fun while you're doing it!

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Today, children are taught to read using phonics, which is all about the sounds that make up words. Children start by learning the letters and the sounds they make, and how to put them together to make and read simple words. Then they learn how letters combine to make new sounds (such as SH), and move on to longer words and new reading skills.

This guide is especially for parents and carers to explain how phonics work and we've made these short videos to help you help your child learn to read.

Learning to read step by step

Alphablocks has five colour-coded stages to help you take phonics step by step.

The different phonics levels used in Alphablocks are:

First steps - red

You can find all of the red level episodes of Alphablocks here.
The first key skill in phonics is to learn the letters and their sounds. This stage introduces the most common letters and the sounds they make. This is different from the letter names many of us learned to read with.

When your child knows their first letters and sounds well, they are ready to read simple words. This involves the key skills of sounding out and blending: point to each letter to say its sound in turn, then say the sounds together to make the word. (Alphablocks do this by holding hands and saying 'c-a-t, CAT!', and so on.)

The other key skill is segmenting, which is the opposite of blending: listen to a word to hear which sounds make it up, and decide which letters you need to make the word.

At this stage, every letter has one sound. To help your child, it's a good idea to get to know the exact letter sounds as they are pronounced in modern phonics.

Letters are introduced in a sequence that means that children can start making and reading lots of words quite quickly. The first letters are s, a, t, p...

Along the way, we meet some double letters (ll, ff, ss) and ck.

Next steps - orange

You can find all of the orange level episodes of Alphablocks here.
This stage introduces the less common letters J, V, W, X, Y, Z and Q (and, naturally, qu). With the alphabet complete, it's time for lots of fun with simple words that use any letters.

It's a good idea to stick with the first two stages (red and orange) until your child is confident with all their letters and sounds and happy reading simple words. Watching and playing the same episodes repeatedly is very useful.

At this point, it's also a good idea to learn the letter names, which you can do with an alphabet song (and the ABC episode of Alphablocks).

Letter teams (digraphs) - yellow

You can find all of the yellow level episodes of Alphablocks here.
When your child is ready, it's time to meet the letter teams: letters that team up to make new sounds (such as CH, EE, OR). Teachers call these digraphs, which means 'two letters that make one sound'.

In Alphablocks, the characters fuse together to make digraphs, so it's easy to spot them. On the page, you can spot them by listening to the word (eg THAT) and breaking it down into the sounds it makes (th-a-t) to spot digraphs (th).

There are lots of digraphs. In this stage, children learn the starter set:
ch, sh, th, ng, ai, ee, oa, oo, ar, or, ur, ow, oi

There are trigraphs too (three letters that make one sound): igh, ear, air, ure.

When your child knows their letter teams well, it's time to move on.

Letter blends - green

You can find all of the green level episodes of Alphablocks here.
Often, consonants get together without making a new sound - they just blend their individual sounds together. For example, STOP starts with the two sounds 's' and 't', which blend together but don't make a new sound (unlike SH).

Teachers call these blends or consonant clusters. There are lots of them. Some come at the start of words (such as step, clap, frog and street). Some come at the end (such as e nd, ca ts, la mp and be st). Some words have blends at both ends (such as ble nd, sta mp and cra nk).

There's no special way to treat blends - simply blend the letter sounds in the word as normal. Getting to know them unlocks hundreds of new words and exciting stories.

Many words combine letter teams and letter blends (such as chi ps, flash, str ong). This stage is all about getting comfortable with blends and everything that's gone before, before taking the next step.

Long vowels - blue

You can find all of the blue level episodes of Alphablocks here.
This is a big step. Your child has already met some letter teams that make the long vowel sounds (ai, ee, igh, oa, oo) - now we learn that there is more than one way to make them.

You can make the long A sound (the same as its name) with the digraph ai ( sail) or with ay ( say). You can make the long E sound with ee ( bee) or with ea ( beat). And so on.

We also learn a new pattern: the words cake, Pete, mine, home and ruleall have long vowel sounds, but the letter teams are separated. Teachers call these split digraphs (a_e, e_e, i_e, o_e, u_e). In Alphablocks, the character Magic E teams up with another vowel with a magic beam that joins them and shows how they work together to make the sound.

Having learned that there is more than one way to make some sounds, it's time to discover that some letters make more than one sound. Y, who has so far been a consonant, springs into life as a vowel in words such as tr y, sh y and happ y. C and G make soft sounds in i ce and ca g e.

This goes for letter teams too: OW can make gl ow as well as c ow.

There are some more digraphs to meet too: wh, ph, au, aw, ir, ow, oy.

CVC words

CVC is short for 'consonant/vowel/consonant' - words such as mat, hen, big, fox, cup. These words are perfect for the early stages of reading (red and orange).

There are lots of them - but watch out for:

words that end in R, W or Y. They join up with the vowel to make letter teams (digraphs) with new sounds: c-ar, n-ow, t-oy and so on (yellow stage)

words with odd vowel sounds: put, son, ton, was and so on (blue stage)

Exception words

At every stage of learning to read, children master new phonics skills and patterns. Any word that doesn't fit what they already know is called an 'exception' word.

Many exception words are quite common and very useful: the, said, no, I, and so on. Your child's teacher will introduce them gradually, some at each stage.

You may also hear them called 'irregular', 'sight', 'red' or 'tricky' words. Common words are also known as 'high-frequency'.

The best way to read exception words together is to point out that the word is a bit unusual and sound out the different sounds: for example, said has the simple 's' sound, the tricky part ( ai) that makes an 'e' sound, and the simple 'd' sound.

The common exception words for each stage are:

RED - the, to, I, go, no, into
ORANGE - he, she
YELLOW - we, me, be, was, my, you, they, her, all, are
GREEN - said, so, have, like, some, come, were, there, little, one, do, when, out, what
BLUE - oh, their, people, Mr, Mrs, looked, called, asked, could

Many names are exception words! Young children are often delighted to discover that their name has special letters and sounds. For example, Lily has a y that makes an 'ee' sound. Ashok has s and h that team up to make a 'sh' sound. And so on.

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Alphablocks - The Alphablocks guide to phonics

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Today, children are taught to read using phonics, which is all about the sounds that make up words. Children start by learning the letters and the sounds they make, and how to put them together to make and read simple words.

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Your child doesn't want to do their online schooling and demands you stop your work on the computer and play games with them instead.

What's going on inside? Your child's normal daily routine has been disrupted by COVID-19 and online home schooling is very new and very different. The predictable structure provided by their school timetable and classroom procedures contribute to a child's sense of calmness and security. At school, your child also spends much of their day learning with and working alongside others. In addition to learning new cognitive skills, children are using and developing their social engagement system/skills to help them manage any small stresses the classroom task creates. With online home schooling, the routines that provide children with boundaries and a sense of security and safety, and the people who provided them with a sense of connection and safety, are no longer there. Without these your child might be feeling uncertain about what is expected of them and unsure and frightened about their learning. These strong emotions can trigger the stress response system (fight and flight) causing them to feel anxious and less able to listen or think through their actions or consequences of their behaviour. They may appear more confrontational and aggressive or fearful and unable to engage with you and others. Some children might respond and try to reduce their stress by using their social engagement system. Their behaviour will aim to keep you close to them, wanting to know what you are doing and engaging you in endless conversations or asking many questions. For more information about the stress response and social engagement system see 'Our Emotions, Brain and Stress'

Step 1: Recognise your child's feelings and empathise with them Notice what emotions might be lying beneath the behaviour your child is displaying. Behaviour: Your child keeps asking you to do things with them, asking random questions and is not concentrating on their online learning tasks which need to be submitted but are still not completed. Their voice is whining and insistent. Their expression looks pained and a little sad. Emotions: Your child might be feeling insecure and/or anger about having to learn in a different environment, sadness about missing their friends and the connection and safety provided by their interactions with others. They may also be aware of your anxiety and stress levels. Step 2: Validate and label the emotion your child is feeling What you might do and say: 'I've noticed you've asked me to play games with you quite a lot this morning and you still haven't finished that first online learning task. I'm wondering if you're feeling that it's hard to settle down to learning and concentrate on a weekday at home with the lessons on the computer. It must feel really strange not doing your Maths with Ayesha and Jacob, I know you all work well together in Maths'. 'I'm finding working at home really strange too. It's hard for me to keep concentrating on what I need to be doing. I'm used to having Jo opposite me and I can ask her any question that comes up as I'm working and have a cup of tea and chat about things'. Step 3: Set limits (if necessary) What you might do and say when your child is calmer: 'With online learning for you and home working for me, we both need to get our work done, but also have some time to play and be with others'. Step 4: Problem Solve What you might do and say when your child is able to think through things with you: * Helping your child to impose some structure and boundaries within this new environment 'How about we come up with a plan so that we can both get our work done but also have time to play games and chat?' and/or Do you think we could make a work timetable at the beginning of the morning and make times for you to play some games with me and for me to have a cup of tea and a breather?' and/or Maybe we could use the timer to help us know when the work parts of the day are over' and/or * Helping your child to use engage their existing social engagement system 'Maybe we could set up a Zoom call with Ayesha and Jacob so you can go through and check the Maths you have done'. Read more about Emotion Coaching

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Your child doesn't want to do their online schooling and demands you stop your work on the computer and play games with them instead. What's going on inside? Your child's normal daily routine has been disrupted by COVID-19 and online home schooling is very new and very different.