What you can do at home

Often as parents, we become concerned about how and when our children are going to read and forget that reading, at any level, should be enjoyable and involves many interlinking skills to be successful. So, share books, magazines, comics, newspapers, football programmes, take away menus, shopping catalogues, anything with text that ignites your child’s interest to read. Simple things like knowing the text conveys a meaning, is read from left to right, is supported by illustrations, punctuation etc are all really beneficial aspects of reading.

We work daily on reading through different activities so your child will be demonstrating their skills and receiving teaching and learning opportunities to develop these constantly. As well as this the children have daily focused phonics sessions. Remember it is not a race each step needs time to embed and we frequently revisit previous learning to ensure this is happening.

Ways you can support your child at home

• Encourage your child to 'read' a book before he or she can read words. They can do this by telling familiar stories in their own words and by making up their own stories using the pictures. 
• Plan a regular time for reading - perhaps when you get home from school or just before bed.
• Read to your child every day – find 10 minutes and sit together with a book. Don’t worry if it’s the same book over and over again!
• Practise reading their school decodable book four times over the week. Remember this text is for them to practise and demonstrate they have mastered skills. Real reading comes from sharing good quality children’s stories and books.
• Look for books on topics that you know your child is interested in - maybe dragons, insects, cookery or a certain sport.
• When you read to your child, make the experience interactive - ask questions about the story, the pictures and what they think of the characters. When they are beginning to learn their sounds (you will find the sounds for the week on their reading bookmark) talk to them about the sounds they are learning.
• Use every day real-life opportunities to read eg. road signs, menus, bus timetable, food labels.
• Look for ways for your child to practise their reading/ phonics eg. look for cvc words to read, find words in the text with different digraphs – ee, oo, encourage them to join in any repetitive parts of the text.
• Join the library – this gives you access to those good quality children’s stories and books. Even better it’s free to do and you are usually able to borrow up to 10 books.

If you are unsure about anything or have any questions please come and see us.

You can find more information and ideas on raising a reader by following this link https://home.oxfordowl.co.uk/reading/raise-a-reader/