Dear Parents
This year your child will be learning English using Oxford Rooftops 1. The city of Rooftops and its community provide a modern, motivating and fun context for learning essential words, structures and skills in English; your child will follow the adventures of Oscar, Anna, Neena and Nizzy and their families, neighbours and friends in and around Park Street in the city.
Oxford Rooftops recognises that your support and encouragement are important to your child’s success and provides plenty of ways for you to join in actively with the Rooftops community of learners, even if you don’t speak English.
Lively and motivating animations, interactive games, real-life culture films, songs, chants, stories, and cut-outs bring the Rooftops characters and community to life, enriching your child’s learning and their understanding of British culture, values and citizenship, and the wider world. Encourage your child to sing you the songs and chants they learn in class, ask them to tell you about the children they have met in Rooftops in the real life and animated films and stories and share their experiences. Try to look at their work regularly and get them to tell you their favourite activities in each unit. And give them lots of praise for their efforts.
Oxford Rooftops has a strong focus on the development of your child’s literacy skills with its many stories and opportunities to bring English home. Get involved by reading or watching together the unit stories and the revision stories (fun comic strip stories that build reading confidence and esteem). Also, encourage them to read you the culture mini-books and take the opportunity to talk about the similarities and differences in culture. And the take-home Phonics Reader, perfect for reading together, will support your child in learning to read in English in a specially developed reading programme for learners of English.
Also, Oxford Rooftops gives you access to support and practice materials through the Oxford Online Learning Zone, an exciting website for students and parents to enjoy together, including a parents’ page, songs, stories and interactive games.
As part of their English language studies your child will be encouraged to build up a Language Portfolio. The European language portfolio is promoted by the Council of Europe and one of its aims is to promote tolerance and cultural awareness through language learning. Encourage them to collect objects that are English or have English on them e.g. food labels or stamps. These can be incorporated into your child’s portfolio and will help motivate them to see English as a real means of communication outside the classroom.
Welcome to our community of learners! Welcome to Oxford Rooftops!