Eyfs articles

We explain what vowels and consonants are and how primary-school children are taught to identify CVC, CCVC and CVCC words, vowel digraphs and consonant digraphs.

A non-chronological report is a piece of text that isn't written in time order. Find out how your child is taught to read and write non-chronological reports in primary school.

Find out how your child will learn to encode – hear a sound and write it down – and what you can do at home to support learning.

As they learn to read, children are taught individual sounds and then how to link them together to form words. By the end of Reception your child will be able to blend sounds together; find out how your child will be taught blending in school and how you can support learning at home.

Your child will be taught about graphemes as part of their phonics learning journey. We explain what graphemes are and how you can help your child understand the concept at home.

If your child has a special educational need, the school’s SENCO is likely to play a big part in his day-to-day life and learning. Lucy Dimbylow highlights nine ways in which she can help make your child’s school journey easier.

Sort your phonemes from your graphemes, decoding from encoding and digraphs from trigraphs with our parents' guide to phonics teaching. Our step-by-step explanation takes you through the different stages of phonics learning, what your child will be expected to learn and the vocabulary you need to know.

Every parent wants their child to be happy at school, but what if there’s a problem? Here’s our step-by-step guide to tackling and resolving some of the common issues that might crop up in primary school.

Phonics teaching introduces children to CVC words (consonant vowel consonant), then CCVC words (consonant consonant vowel consonant) and CVCC words (consonant vowel consonant consonant). Understand how teachers will present the different words in the classroom and how to support your child's learning at home in our parents' guide to decoding and blending sounds.

Design and technology is part of the national curriculum. Teacher and parent Phoebe Doyle offers some practical D&T project ideas and suggestions to help your child get hands-on, boost their confidence and have fun (and make mess!) with materials at home.

We’re surrounded by history and heritage, and these books, games, toys and apps will make it come to life for children (and adults!) of all ages. Cook a Tudor treat, visit a virtual Roman London or read the diary of a war nurse – each activity is packed with information and details that create a real sense of being in the past. Start a life-long love of history and its treasures today!

Whether your child is a diva in the making or more inclined to be backstage crew, drama and acting could help develop skills that will offer a boost in many areas of life, says Lucy Dimbylow.

Great toys, books and resources to help your child learn to tell the time on analogue and digital timepieces, from clock face recognition to estimating time differences on the 24-hour clock.

Illegible handwriting? Huge letters? Strange pencil grip? Struggles with left-handed writing? If your child is finding handwriting hard, perhaps it’s one of these four issues. Find out more about how to tackle these common problems with advice from the National Handwriting Association's Angela Webb.

Once your child is at full-time school, cheap term-time holidays become a thing of the past. But who sets school term dates, and is taking your child out of school for a family break really a big no-no? TheSchoolRun explains.

Throughout primary school children learn about the properties of the shapes in the world around them (primary geometry, in other words). Phoebe Doyle offers some insiders’ tips on helping them master shape and space maths targets.

Weights and measures can be a really fun area of maths to teach in school – but one that can leave parents unsure of how to help at home. Teacher Phoebe Doyle has some hints and suggestions.

A good understanding of place value (the value of each digit in a number) is vital in primary-school maths. Our parents' guide explains how your child will be taught about ones, tens, hundreds and thousands with number lines, arrow cards and more, as well as outlining how place value is used to help children visualise calculations.

Help your child with their addition work, from the basics in Reception to calculations in KS1 and KS2, with some teachers' tricks to help the learning stick.