After 2 years at school

The New Zealand Curriculum: Reading at school

If your child is meeting the Reading Standard after two years at school they will be reading books that are at turquoise level on the colour wheel.

They will bring home fiction and non-fiction books. The stories will be longer and might include diagrams with labels, some familiar words, some new topic words and descriptive language.

To meet the standard your child will be learning to:

• use what they know about letters and other words to work out new words
• read whole sentences without big pauses, and use the punctuation, so that the reading sounds smooth and interesting
• notice when they make important mistakes (especially if things stop making sense) and know how to fix them, most of the time
• use labels, speech bubbles, charts and tables to help them understand the stories
• read silently by themselves
• tell if the story is real or made up, remember important parts of it and be able to find parts that answer questions.

The colour wheel

The colour wheel levels begin at magenta where the books are simple and move through red, yellow, blue, green and orange to turquoise, getting slightly harder and more complex at each colour. Your child will cover the purple and gold levels in their third year at school.

Reading at home

Make reading fun

• Reading at home needs to be fun and easy – something you both look forward to, a time for laughter and talk.
• Find a comfortable, quiet place for the two of you to cuddle up and read, away from the TV for 10-15 minutes.
• If you or your child start to feel stressed, take a break and read the rest of the story aloud yourself – keep it fun.
• Make some puppets – old socks, tubes of paper or card, cut-outs on sticks – that you and your child can use to act out the story you have read. Or dress up and make it into a play.
• Play card games (you can make the cards yourself).
• Read songs, waiata, poems and rhymes, have fun together. Sing them together, too.

TIP: When they are reading, your child will still be coming across words they don’t know. When this happens, you could remind them to think about what they already know to do when they get stuck. If that doesn’t help you might ask "What word would make sense that starts like that?" or "What do you know about that word that might help?" If they still can’t work it out – tell them and praise their efforts.

Take your child to the library

• Help them choose books to share.
• Find other books by the same author or on the same topic (or look for more information on the web – you might have to be the reader for this one).

TIP: Help your child to link stories to their own life. Remind them about what they have done when a similar thing happens in the story.

Talk about reading

• Talk about the story and the pictures, other stories you have read, and experiences you have both had that are like those in the story.
• Sometimes you can be the listener, sometimes the reader and sometimes you can take turns. The cat, the dog, teddy or a big brother might get read to, too.
• All children like to be read to, so don’t stop reading to them – no matter how old they are.
• Encourage your child to read all sorts of things – the TV guide in the newspaper, street signs, food labels. Simple recipes are great – you get to eat what you’ve read about, too.

TIP: Talk with your child all the time – and give them time to talk with you. You can use your first language.

The New Zealand Curriculum: Writing at school

If your child is meeting the Writing Standard after two years at school they will be writing at curriculum level 1.

To meet the standard your child will be learning to:

• write stories and other kinds of writing that they can use at school and at home. This includes simple instructions, explanations of what happens and the way it happens, simple descriptions of people, and of things they have done and seen, know about or are making up
• use full stops, question marks and capital letters most of the time
• spell many words correctly, and try writing new words using what they know about other similar words
• write longer sentences and use simple connecting words ("like", "and") to join sentences together.

Writing at home

Make writing fun

• Encourage your child to write – on paper or on the computer. It is OK for you to help and share the writing. Give lots of praise.
• Enjoy the message and don’t make your child anxious about spelling or neatness.
• Make a photo book and get your child to write a title.
• Scrapbooks are fun, too. Old magazine or newspaper pictures about a favourite subject, dogs, your family, motorbikes or the latest toy craze, pasted on to blank pages – with room for captions or stories, too.
• Play with words. Thinking of interesting words and discussing new ones can help increase the words your child uses when they write. Look up words in the dictionary or on the Internet or talk to family and whänau to find out more about the meaning and the whakapapa (origins) of the words.

TIP: Talk a lot to your child while you are doing things together. Use the language that works best for you and your child.

Talk about their writing

• Make up a different ending for a favourite story to use for reading together.
• Ask them to write about pictures they draw. Get them to tell you the story.
• Keep writing fun and use any excuse you can think of to encourage your child to write about anything, any time.

TIP: Don’t worry if your child’s letters are sometimes backwards or words are misspelt at this age. The important thing is that they have fun writing at home and are making an effort.

Give them reasons to write

Help your child to:

• write lists – ‘Things I need from the shop’, ‘Games to play when I am bored’, ‘Things I want to do in the holidays’. The last one can be cut up and go into a box or bag for a lucky dip when the holidays finally arrive
• write out recipes or instructions for other people to follow (especially fun if the instructions are for an adult)
• keep a diary, especially if you are doing something different and exciting. Your child can draw the pictures or stick in photos. Their diary could be a webpage on the computer
• write letters, cards, notes and emails to friends and family and the Tooth Fairy – you might write replies sometimes, too
• cut out letters from old magazines and newspapers to make messages
• write secret messages for others to find in their lunch box or under their pillow.

TIP: Display their work. Be proud of it. Share it with others.

Talk about their writing

• Make up a different ending for a favourite story to use for reading together.
• Ask them to write about pictures they draw. Get them to tell you the story.
• Keep writing fun and use any excuse you can think of to encourage your child to write about anything, any time.

TIP: Don’t worry if your child’s letters are sometimes backwards or words are misspelt at this age. The important thing is that they have fun writing at home and are making an effort.

The New Zealand Curriculum: Mathematics at school

If your child is meeting the Mathematics Standard after two years at school they will be working at curriculum level 1, solving realistic problems using their growing understanding of number, algebra, geometry, measurement and statistics.

They will be counting forwards and backwards, in their heads, from the biggest number, rather than starting at one. They may use their fingers to help them keep track of numbers.

To meet the standard your child will be learning to:

• solve problems using numbers up to 100
• count in 2s, 5s and 10s, forwards and backwards
• find ½ and ¼ of simple shapes and sets of objects
• sort objects into common groups and describe what they have done
• ask and answer questions and display their findings
• give and follow directions
• measure objects using their hands, feet or a pencil.

This is a small part of the skills and knowledge your child is learning in order to meet this standard. Talk to the teacher for more information about your child’s learning.

Focus on number

During your child’s second year at school, 60–80 per cent of mathematics teaching time will focus on number learning.

Mathematics at home

Talk together and have fun with numbers and patterns

Help your child to:

• find and connect numbers around your home and neighbourhood; eg 7 on a letterbox, 17 on another and 27 on another
• count forwards and backwards starting with different numbers (eg 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, then back again)
• make patterns when counting forwards and backwards (eg "5, 10, 15, 20 then 20, 15, 10, 5 and 30, 40, 50, 60 or 12, 14, 16, 18, 20 …")
• do addition and subtraction problems by counting forwards or backwards in their heads (eg 8 + 4, 16 – 3)
• count the number of poi in a kapa haka performance
• learn their ‘ten and...’ facts (eg 10 + 4, 10 + 7)
• double and halve numbers to 20 (eg 7 + 7 is 14, half of 14 is 7).

TIP: Being positive about mathematics is really important for your child’s learning – even if you didn’t enjoy it or do well at it yourself at school.

Use easy, everyday activities

Involve your child in:

• sorting (washing, odd socks, toys, cans) while tidying up
• telling you what their favourite things are – food, sport, colour
• reading - notice and talk about numbers. Ask questions about the pictures like “how many birds are there?”
• a shape and number search together wherever you are, like numbers of shoes, shapes of doors and windows.

TIP: Mathematics is an important part of everyday life and there are lots of ways you can make it fun for your child.

For wet afternoons/school holidays/weekends

Get together with your child and:

• use mathematics words during play (treasure hunts, obstacle courses, building huts) - "under', "over", 'between", 'around", "behind", "up", "down', "heavy", "light', 'round", "your turn next"
• "before", "after", "left" and "right", "square", "triangle" – you can use your first language
• play with big cardboard boxes using words like "inside", "outside"
• play games and do puzzles; eg jigsaws, "I spy something that is longer, bigger, smaller than..."
• do water play using different shaped containers and measuring cups
• bake – talk to your child about the recipe/ingredients and how many pieces you need to feed everyone
• dance to music and sing/clap to favourite songs
• make and play stick games with tī rākau or newspaper rolls
• play with a pack of cards - make up addition and subtraction problems using numbers to 20
• look at a calendar – "how many days/weeks until an event?", "how many days in the month?", "how many weekends?". Encourage your
• child to look for patterns.

TIP: The way your child is learning to solve mathematics problems may be different from when you were at school. Get them to show you how they do it and support
them in their learning.

Support your child

As parents and whānau you play a big part in your child’s learning every day, and you can support and build on what they learn at school too.

Work together

Help support your child’s learning by building a good relationship with your child’s teacher, finding out how your child is doing and working together to support their learning.