Supporting at Home with Phonics and Early Reading
Reading is one of the most important skills that your child will learn in the early years of school. As parents you will have already done an awful lot towards teaching your child to read. The aim of this section is to give you some extra ideas as to how you can support at home.
Please read and re-read the books with your child which they bring home from school. From reading books more than once, children will develop confidence and familiarity with the story language and structure. Re-reading will also give children the opportunity to practise and apply their phonics knowledge. This will help to develop their reading fluency and also their writing skills. Due to the structure of the reading sessions, children in F2 and KS1 will have their books changed once each week. Please make sure that your child brings their book bag and reading book to school every day.
The development of comprehension skills is really important in Year 2 and above. You can support your child with this by:
- Asking simple questions about what they have read.
- Asking them to point to a specific part of the books that gave them the information.
- Asking them what certain words mean.
- Asking them to make predictions based on what they have read.
If you would like more information about how to support your child with phonics at home, please follow this link to find the Reception and Year 1 overview as well as videos of the sound pronunciations, letter formation sheets and other helpful resources.
https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/resources/for-parents/
Expectations
Regular practice at home will make a huge difference to your child’s reading. As part of our EYFS and KS1 homework, it is expected that children read at home at least three times a week at home. When you listen to your child read at home, please ensure that you sign the diary.
- Fit reading times into your daily routine to make it easier to manage. For example 5 minutes before tea-time or bed. Your child does not have to read the whole book; little and often is best.
- Get the whole family involved! Ask grandparents, older brothers and sisters and aunties and uncles to read with your child! (Don’t forget to ask them to sign their reading diary! A simple initial and smiley face if they are short of time!)
- Make it a fun and enjoyable experience – remember, we are trying to develop a life-long love of reading.
Each week adults in school will check the reading diaries and children will receive a gold star stamp in their diary for reading at home. If a child is not reading at home, the class teacher will have a discussion with you to see how we can offer further support.
Sharing Books
Children will also bring home a sharing book. In order to encourage your child to become a lifelong reader, it is important that they learn to read for pleasure. The sharing book is a book they have chosen for you to enjoy together.
Please remember that you shouldn’t expect your child to read this alone. Read it to or with them. Discuss the pictures, enjoy the story, predict what might happen next, use different voices for the characters, explore the facts in a non-fiction book. The main thing is that you have fun!
Supporting Reading for KS2 Children
The development of children’s comprehension skills is really important in KS2.
You can support children in this by :
1) Asking simple questions about what they have read.
2) Asking them to point to specific parts of the book that gave them the
information.
3) Asking them what certain words mean.
4) Asking them to make predictions based on what they have read.
5) Asking them to summarise what they have read.
It may be appropriate for children in upper KS2 to read independently but it
is important that you still ask them questions about their reading.
Expectations
Regular practice at home will make a huge difference to your child’s reading.
Please hear your child read at least 3 times per week and sign their diary
each time.
- Fit reading times into your daily routine to make it easier to manage. For
example 5 minutes before tea-time or bed. Your child does not have to
read a whole book; little and often is best. - Get the whole family involved! Ask grandparents, older brothers and sisters
and aunties and uncles to read with your child! (Don’t forget to ask them
to sign their reading diary! A simple initial and smiley face in the record
is fine if they are short of time!) - Make it a fun and enjoyable experience – Remember, we are trying to
develop a life-long love of reading.
How can I help my child with reading?
- Share books together!
- When reading if a child is really struggling to read a word simply read
the word for them. - Make sure that your child sees you reading.
- Go to the library.
- Point out that text is everywhere e.g in newspapers, magazines, blogs and
on the internet. - Involve your child in writing – cards, shopping lists, notes, text messages,thank you letters etc.
- Show your child how to find things out by reading
- Make reading a pleasure and praise your child’s efforts.
- Bring stories to life with lots of expression and silly voices