Parents and carers play a key role in helping their child read. If children read at home, they are more likely to be successful learners at school. At Belton, we encourage children to read every day at home and expect reading journals to be checked and signed by a parent/carer.
Early Years/Key Stage 1
Ensure that you set aside a quiet time every night to spend time looking at your children’s books.
Make reading a very positive and enjoyable experience through lots of praise.
Children begin to read using their phonics knowledge which means that they will use sounds rather than say the letter name.
Talk about the books that you have read. Being a good reader is more about understanding what you have read than being able to just being able to read the words.
Look at the pictures and discuss what is happening, do they like a character, what might happen next, what was their favourite part?
The most important thing you can do is to talk to your child and listen to them when they are talking to you. Try to extend their vocabulary range and their skill at talking in increasingly more complex sentences. For example, try to teach them alternative words for ideas, or nouns they already know.
Key Stage 2
Your child may now be a fluent reader and prefer to do some of their reading independently, however it is still important that they are encouraged to discuss what they have read.
You can help keep your child’s comprehension skills up to speed by asking lots of where / how / what / when questions about facts in the book. Children also need to develop their inference and deduction skills - these can be developed through the use of questioning E.g. How do you think this character is feeling? What might happen next?
Give your child plenty of praise for demonstrating dedication to reading and answering comprehension questions.
There are many websites available for parents giving resources or ideas for helping your child read at home these include Oxford Owls
