Home Learning
Stonefields School's approach to home learning is informed by research. A lot of research suggests that homework can indeed have a negative impact on student learning. However there are specific home learning tasks that can support and accelerate learning - mileage, building automatic recall, reinforcing current learning and targeted practice when tailored can be very beneficial.
The home learning tasks that can be impactful are:
Mileage - spending time reading each night. Recommendation: up to 20 mins every weeknight.
Building automatic recall - practising age-appropriate foundation knowledge like basic facts, sight and spelling words so that automatic recall is developed.
Reinforcing current learning - specific tasks are set that build on and reinforce learning that has already been taught, needs to be finished or reinforced further at home.
Targeted practice - Specific learning tasks or practice is set for some learners to close an achievement gap.
Pre-Learning - tasks that are aimed at helping learners to develop levels of curiosity and interest before they learn a new concept or topic e.g developing a family tree, introduction to some key vocabulary related to the new concept or topic.
Home learning should be a positive experience. Non-specific home learning unrelated to a child's next steps can end up being busywork rather than constructive learning. Too much homework can lead to stress, unnecessary pressure and a lack of balance in children's lives.
Year 0-2
Reading Milage
We encourage children to be read to or read for up to 20 minutes each weekday, regardless of their age. There are a number of ways you can encourage reading at home, reading together, reading for fun, researching together.
Reading with your child tips:
Take time to talk about the title and the illustration on the front cover
Flick through the book and talk about the illustrations in the book
Listen to your child read the text. Encourage smooth, fluent reading. Encourage your child to read with expression
Praise your child as they read
Keep it relaxed, enjoyable and fun
Here are some suggested activities to help with comprehension
ask some questions before and after reading the text
ask your child to retell the events in the story in their own words
discuss any new vocabulary
ask your child to make up another ending to the story
ask your child to tell you their favourite part of the story and explain why.
Building automatic recall
Letter Sound Practise. suggested apps include: letter sound and letter formation app, and letter sound app
Practice Heart Words (see SchoolTalk)
Weekly Code Spelling Words (see SchoolTalk)
Reinforcing current learning
Weekly structured literacy home learning
Targeted practice
Handwriting practice
Letter sound activities
Heart words
Year 3-4
Reading Mileage
We encourage children to be read to or read for up to 20 minutes each weekday, regardless of their age. There are a number of ways you can encourage reading at home, reading together, reading for fun, researching together.
Tips for exploring your child's reading:
Ask your child to summarise the story in their own words
Talk about who the characters are and where the story took place.
Make connections to other texts they have read and to their own experiences
Discuss the main idea of the text
Discuss why the author wrote the story
Ask questions where the answers can be found in the text
Ask questions where the answers are not obvious in the text
Make reading fun, act out parts of the story
Discuss your child’s favourite part of the story
Praise your child’s reading
Get Epic
Epic is free access to thousands of books that safely fuel curiosity and reading confidence for kids 12 and under.
You can use it at home with your child’s class code, or you can sign up for free as a family.
Building automatic recall
Weekly Code Spelling Words
Year 3
Year 4
Times Tables:
Year 3 learners need to practise the 1, 2, 3, 5 and 10 times tables
Year 4 learners need to know 1, 2, 3, 5, 10 plus 4, 6 and the division facts for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 10
Reinforcing current learning
Finishing off current work at home
Targeted practice
Home learning
Steps
Basic facts sheets
Structured literacy sheets
Handwriting practise
Pre Learning
Concept vocabulary building prior to new concept being taught.
Year 5-6
Reading Mileage
We encourage children to be read to or read for up to 20 minutes each weekday, regardless of their age.
If your child is meeting the Reading Standard by the end of Year 5 and 6 they will be reading and understanding a variety of fiction and non-fiction stories to support their learning in all areas of the curriculum.
What your child uses in class
Get Epic
Epic is free access to thousands of books that safely fuel curiosity and reading confidence for kids 12 and under.
You can use it at home with your child’s class code, or you can sign up for free as a family.
ReadTheory
ReadTheory is a free resource that supports learners to build reading comprehension skills offering online reading activities for all ages and ability levels.The custom web application adapts to students’ individual ability levels and presents them with thousands of skill building exercises that suit their needs, so you can be confident your child is getting asked the questions they need to build their skills further.
Your child will already have an account, however if there are any problems accessing the sight speak to your child’s class teacher.
Pobble 365
Pobble 365 is a free resource that promotes both reading and writing. Using the resource you will find 365 images with story starters - one for each day of the year. There are ideas for activities to complete once the picture and story starter have been investigated. A useful idea could be to work together to predict what might happen next.
Many of the images also link to examples of real children’s writing. The work has been written by children from all over the world and published on Pobble.com. Reading writing that learners the same age as your child have written will inspire your child to become an author too.
Building automatic recall
Weekly Code Spelling Words
Year 5
Year 6
Times Tables:
Year 5 learners need to know the multiplication and division facts for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, plus 7, 8, 9, 10
Year 6 learners need to know all the multiplication facts and division facts to 12 and develop automatic recall of these.
Reinforcing current learning
Finishing off current work at home in particular writing pieces
Targeted practice
Basic facts
Spelling
Steps
Handwriting practise
Pre Learning
One page pre learning sheet which focuses on the following term’s concept.
Intermediate
Reading Mileage
We encourage children to be read to or read for up to 20 minutes each weekday, regardless of their age.
What your child uses in class
ReadTheory
ReadTheory is a free resource that supports learners to build reading comprehension skills offering online reading activities for all ages and ability levels.The custom web application adapts to students’ individual ability levels and presents them with thousands of skill building exercises that suit their needs, so you can be confident your child is getting asked the questions they need to build their skills further.
Your child will already have an account, however if there are any problems accessing the site, please speak to your child’s hub teacher.
Education Perfect
Education Perfect is a New Zealand based online programme, which targets learners next steps in the areas of literacy and numeracy. Tasks are assigned by teachers in accordance with learners’ next steps devised from assessments and teacher observation. Reading comprehension tasks practising the skills of inference, evaluation and prediction across fiction and non fiction texts are broken down and delivered to learners.
Khan Academy
Khan Academy is an online learning tool which specifically targets the learning areas of numeracy and science. Tasks can be assigned by a teacher, but learners are also able to select their own points of interest and next steps. The content levels primarily focus on upper primary and secondary school and videos and interactive
Building automatic recall
Consolidation of all times tables and division facts from 1-12.
Reinforcing current learning
Weekly maths home learning sheet
Weekly literacy home learning she .
Targeted practice
Basic facts
Spelling
Steps
Handwriting practise
Pre Learning
One page pre learning sheet that focuses on the following term’s concept
How you can support your child at home with Reading
Read together
Reading with your child is one of the most important things you can do, no matter how old they are. We encourage learners to be reading daily for a minimum of 20 minutes.
When supporting your child with reading, you can use your first language – it does make a difference to your children’s learning. When you are reading with your child, you can talk about words or ideas in the text that your child might not have come across before. Children are often interested in new words and what they mean – encourage them to look them up in a dictionary or ask family/whänau about the meaning and origin.
Make reading fun
Reading can happen any place, any where. Have discussions together about books – read the books your child is reading. Encourage Internet research about topics of interest – notice what they are keen on. Make your home a reader-friendly home with plenty of books, magazines, newspapers that everyone can read – look for books and magazines at fairs and second-hand shops. Ask your family or whänau if they have any they no longer want. Share what you think and how you feel about the characters, the story or the opinions in magazines and newspapers you are reading. It is important that your child sees you as a reader and you talk about what you are reading. Keep the magic of listening to a good story alive by reading either made up, retold or read-aloud stories to your child – with lots of excitement through the use of your voice!
Be a reader yourself
Be a role model. Let your child see you enjoying reading – whether it’s the newspaper, a magazine, a comic, a cook book or a novel. Read in the language that works best for you.
Talk about what you are reading and why you are enjoying it or what is challenging about it. Read a book to your child that they might find difficult but want to read, and talk about it as you read. Use your first language whenever you can – it can help your child’s learning. Read the same book or magazine as your child. You can then share your ideas about what you have read. You could talk about why the authors made the choices they did when writing the story.
Stonefields School Library
Our school Library houses many texts for learners to love. Did you know that you can search what books we have on offer via our Stonefields School Library website. The site also offers many exciting digital resources to support fostering a love of reading at home.
Can’t find what you are looking for? Our school site also shares a link to Auckland Libraries.
SchoolTalk
SchoolTalk is an innovative web app, that makes learning and progress visible for teachers, children and their parents. There are four key purposes that have been intentionally designed into SchoolTalk's functionality. These are:
Building learner agency - Learners know how they are going and what their next steps are
Automating realtime progress and achievement reporting
Building parent partnerships
Developing teacher effectiveness and efficiency
Research shows that learners who know how they are going, where they are and where to next, develop agency and are equipped to progress their own learning. SchoolTalk is populated with learning progressions in critical to Know areas like Reading, Writing, Maths and 'Critical to Learn' e.g. capabilities such as collaborating and wellbeing.
You can be as involved with your child's learning as you choose. Logging into SchoolTalk with your child is a great way to stay connected with what they are learning and how they are going. Your child's progressions can be viewed anytime by logging into SchoolTalk and will give you up to date information on what they have achieved (highlighted in green) and what their next learning steps are (highlighted in yellow)
Contact
81 Tihi Street
Stonefields
Auckland 1072
Phone: 09 527 7721
Email: office@stonefields.school.nz
Term Dates 2025
Term 1: Monday 3 February - Friday 11 April
Term 2: Monday 28 April - Friday 27 June
Term 3: Monday 14 July - Friday 19 September
Term 4: Monday 6 October - Tuesday 16 December
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