Collins4Parents

            
      Making Sense of Book Bands
    
      Book Banding is a popular way of organising children’s reading books. It’s a system that allows schools to choose books from a range of reading programmes and know that they are of the same level of difficulty. There are 19...
    
        3 min
      
        09/03/2023
      
      5 handy tips for preparing SATs at home
    
      My name’s Tom and I’m a proud father of three as well as a parent blogger at Diary of the Dad. The dreaded SATs are on the horizon and teachers, parents and kids alike are already mentioning them in hushed...
    
        3 min
      
        09/03/2023
      
      Helping your Key Stage 2 child with reading
    
      Literacy expert Gill Matthews, shares some simple, enjoyable ideas for how you, as parents, can support your child’s reading comprehension and development at home. Once your child is able to decode words – i.e. they can work out how...
    
        7 min
      
        09/03/2023
      
      Helping your Key Stage 1 child with reading
    
      Over 300 Collins Big Cat KS1 books are available as eBooks on the Collins Learn at Home web page. Why not take a look and use these ideas to help you make the most of this free on-line library? You can...
    
        5 min
      
        09/03/2023
      
      How to support your child with writing at home
    
      Writing is one of the most challenging things we ask our children to do and knowing what’s expected in each year group and how to help your child can be hard. We’ve taken a look at some of the writing...
    
        5 min
      
        09/03/2023
      
      Fun ways to help your child with phonics
    
      Phonics is about learning the sounds that individual letters make: singly (a, b, c) or together (th, ck, tch). These sounds are called phonemes. We can put phonemes together to make words (b-i-g; ch-e-ck). One thing to bear in mind...
    
        5 min
      
        07/03/2023
      
      What are Common Exception Words?
    
      Common exception words are everyday words that break the phonic rules taught at school. Whilst these words will always be part of each child’s common vocabulary, they will eventually cease to be ‘exception words’ when the child understands the rules...
    
        3 min
      
        07/03/2023
      
      Improve English and Maths skills at home
    
      Primary schools have changed a lot over recent years and expectations for young children are high. English and Maths are top of the agenda and our children have a whole lot to learn. Many will benefit from additional support at...
    
        3 min
      
        07/03/2023
      
      Five tips to help kids learn a language
    
      Number One - Study (at least a little) every day Learning a language is like building a fire - if you don't keep adding to it, it will go out! So if your child has decided to learn a language,...
    
        3 min
      
        07/03/2023
      
      Getting to know comprehension
    
      Reading comprehension is about understanding what you've read. During reading sessions in school, children share their understanding through discussions and verbal questioning, and through written comprehension activities where they write answers to questions about what they've read. Many children find...
    
        4 min
      
        07/03/2023
      
      Four ways to boost your teen's happiness
    
      Being a teenager has its own unique challenges and can be a particularly unsettling time to have to deal with big changes or uncertainty. Here are four very simple ways to help teens take control of well-being and boost happiness...
    
        3 min
      
        07/03/2023
      
      What to do about bullying at school
    
      Bullying at school is really common. Young Minds says it affects over 1 million young people a year. This DOES NOT ever make it okay though or mean that it should be tolerated. It is not to be...
    
        9 min
      
        07/03/2023