Reading at home

REMEMBER READING SHOULD BE FUN. Relax, encourage and enjoy !

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Reading At Home and School

SPEAKING AND LISTENING AT HOME Speaking and listening MUST come before reading.

Your child should be able to communicate appropriately and in full sentences. This will enable your child to predict words in sentences and understand if what they have read makes sense.

OVERCOMING DIFFICULTIES Some ideas to help if your child runs into difficulties.

If they stop at a difficult word     

They should also be able to hear and recognise sounds.

When your child can do this they will be able to learn their letter sounds, hear and identify these sounds in words and be able to blend them together to read them accurately in to words.

Children learn through talking to adults and their peers.

They learn from face to face conversation in a quiet environment. By watching faces they learn to respond using facial expressions and words.

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If they make a mistake    

They do NOT learn to talk from the TV, radio or computer.

If it is a character or place name tell them.

Wait 5 seconds and encourage them to have a go.

Wait again to allow them to think. If their attempt makes sense praise them.

Ask one or two questions about the story which might give them a lead.

USE the pictures .

Read the sentence again for your child and miss out the word. This might help your child predict what the word might.

If they still don’t know tell them.

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WAIT and listen don’t interrupt. Use the same positive language you did when they were learning to talk.

If it makes sense then it shows they are understanding the story If it makes no sense at all wait until the end of the Sentence and invite them to try again.

Praise attempts focusing on meaning.

If there is no response tell them and continue with the story.

Returning to errors later 

Praise the child for the “sensible” error and then ask if they can think of another word using first letter and pictures for more clues.

If the story is too hard  

Read the story WITH your child.

Encourage them to join in as much as possible.

YOUR CHILD READING TO YOU? Encourage your child to read their book OR do a phonic activity daily. It doesn’t have to be for more than 10 minutes but little and often is crucial. Make it an enjoyable experience in a quiet and relaxed atmosphere. Make sure you are both comfortable.

Reading is supposed to be FUN! The emphasis is on enjoyment and meaning NOT 100% accuracy. Remember your child is sharing their story with you so that is as important as the individual words.

Be enthusiastic and listen! Don’t just pretend while you are doing something else.

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Talk about the book first. What is the title? What do they think will happen?

Look at some of the pictures and set the scene talking about what is happening. This is like laying out the pieces of a jigsaw before you make it. It is not cheating!

Ask your child to hold their own book, turn their own pages and point to their own words. It is their book and they are reading it to you.

Ask questions about the story. What do they think will happen next? Why did the character do that?

Praise their attempts and tell them how much you enjoyed listening.

Complete the reading record to let us know you have listened to your child and make any comments which we will find helpful when we are working with your child.

Return the book to school.

If your child is not interested or is too tired DO NOT force them to read. Try another day or a different book.

SPEAKING AND LISTENING AT SCHOOL Our environment is designed to be a communication friendly space. We encourage talking during group, paired and individual time. There are quiet places for the children to chat to each other, to plan what they will do next and to make decisions. This encourages creative thinking and speaking.

We model listening and questioning with the children and explain the rules of conversations. We answer their questions and discuss their ideas with them so that they feel what they have to say is valued.

Through role play the children develop an understanding of characters and how they interact with each other.

It also enables them children to practise turn taking in conversation in an informal way.

The children are encouraged to talk about their games to answer the questions about what they are doing, and why.

We learn songs and rhymes to help with our learning in other subjects but also to help with rhyme.

HOW CAN YOU HELP? Making time for conversations is the hardest but most important thing you can do to help your child.  

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Make time to answer their questions however irrelevant they may seem.

Talk about familiar things; having a bath, brushing their teeth, their day, their journey, shopping, gardening, playing.

Help children if they are struggling but resist the temptation to do it for them.

Model the correct way of saying a sentence rather than correcting them.

Read picture books.

Tell stories/ Sing nursery rhymes.

Pretend play with telephones Demonstrate good listening skills and talk about good listeners. Look at your child, make eye contact, go down to their level, keep still and think about what is being said. Tell your child what you are doing.

Make time for meals together as often as you can.

Talk about family decisions.

INDIVIDUAL READING BOOKS EVERY child will receive a reading book when they have mastered the basic pre-reading skills.

We feel that it is important to teach the children these skills before they have a reading book so they are fully equipped to start their life long journey to becoming a READER! The children will be able to change these books twice a week but we would ask send them to school every day.

We try and listen to them read individually as often as we can and this is possible if they are in school.

The books will be levelled according to your child’s ability and they should be able to read them it to you with only a little help. This does not mean that the book is too easy but at the correct level for them.

The books are organised into BAND. This is a national scheme which allows books to be levelled according to the reading skills and vocabulary they need to read them competently NOT the amount of text. This can be confusing as it does not always follow the list on the back of the book or even the colour of the scheme.

We have labelled each book with the appropriate colour sticker to help you.

HOW CAN YOU HELP? Read to them EVERY day  Just before they go to bed is a good time but any quiet time will do. Not in front of the TV!  Be enthusiastic about the book and topic.  Let your child choose their book even if it is the same one over and over again.

READING AT HOME Sharing reading together will help your child to develop a love of reading. Show them where print is in their environment and read everything around them; signs, menus, magazines, newspapers, shop signs, labels, recipes, football league tables and maps are some.

During reading  Show your enjoyment… laugh, smile, look scared, sad, use your voice to create characters and set the scene.  Run your finger under the words showing your child where you start and direction of the print.  Invite your child to turn the pages over and develop respect for the book.  Talk about the pictures.

After reading  Talk about similar experiences your child might have had…”Do you remember when…”  Talk about the story.. “Which bit did you like?”

“Wasn’t it funny when….”

If your child enjoyed the story  Read it again and again  Find more stories by the same author or with similar story lines

Let your child see you reading as well as reading with them.

Become a champion for reading. Be enthusiastic about what you can read include information as well as stories.

Join the library together and choose books together.

Children who are read to regularly develop a positive attitude to books and love reading. This is a powerful incentive to children to learn to read for themselves!

READING AT SCHOOL Your child is surrounded by a print rich environment.

They are encouraged to read the signs around them and they are read to everyday either as a group, in pairs or individually. There are books in each of the main areas of continuous provision and the children are encouraged to look at them for ideas for play and to find the answers to their questions in books.

We have a weekly library time and teach the children how to handle books with care and respect.

SHARED READING

The children take part in a daily 20 minute shared reading time that usually links to the topics and interests we are learning about that week. Each week we include stories, poems and non-fiction (information) books. In this session we also reinforce how to handle books, look at the author, title, illustrator and blurb. We discuss our likes and dislikes and find other books to read that relate to the topic.

PHONICS

The children have a specific phonics session every day for twenty minutes. This focus’ on letter sounds and they blend together to make words. This is an important part of reading and the children will only move on to a reading book when they can blend and segment words correctly..

There are 44 phonemes (see sheet) and the children will learn them over the next 3 years. They will learn to hear them, say them read them and write them.

TRICKY WORDS

The children are taught sight vocabulary which they have to memorise. These words can NOT be sounded out but are essential to make a sentence make sense

READING STRATEGIES

We teach the children different reading strategies so that they can become independent readers. We encourage them to work out a word rather than always ask for help.

These are; Initial letter Use the letter sounds and blend them together Look at the picture Miss out the word and read to the end and see what fits Is it a “tricky word”?

Think about the story and what makes sense

GUIDED READING

Twice a week the children will take part in a guided reading session. These sessions are for 15-20 minutes in a small group with other children at their level. The teacher will reinforce reading skills, introduce new vocabulary and discuss the book encouraging the children to ask and answer questions.