Helping Your Child to Read

Helping your child to read

HELPING YOUR CHILD TO READ

Try and find a quiet place where there are no distractions and your child feels comfortable,
Start by looking at the front cover, discussing the picture and then the title,
Ask questions such as: What do you think this book / story might be about? What makes you think that? What do you think might happen? Why?
When looking at the first few pages – were your predictions right about the story? How did the story start?
Discuss the characters that you have been introduced to, can your child relate to them in any way?
When reading unfamiliar words, try and break the words up into the sounds and not the letter name. (e.g c/a/t, the correct sounds can be found on you tube if you search ‘jolly phonics’, this is just the sounds as we create our own actions in class.) Please note, if your child is finding it difficult to read a word, read the whole sentence together missing out the word – can they then put the word into context?
Read lines of words together, then ask your child to read the line on their own
Identify punctuation – start with capital letters and full stops and then moving on to commas, exclamation marks and question marks.
Identify speech marks and help your child to use these to add character voices and expression.
Remember to use lots of praise and encouragement. Tell them how proud you are of their reading, write in their homework diary and show them what you have written.

WHAT QUESTIONS CAN I ASK MY CHILD ABOUT WHAT THEY’RE READING?

Examples of questions that will help your child to understand, describe, and retrieve information, events or ideas from texts

Where / when does the story take place?
What did he / she look like?
Where did he / she live?
Who are the main characters in the story?
What happened in the story?
Where did you find information about?

Examples of questions that will help your child to deduce, infer or interpret information, events or ideas from texts

Who was the storyteller? How do you know?
What do you think is going to happen next? Why?
What makes you think that?
What words made you think that?
How did you feel about…? Why?
What questions would you ask the author?
What isyou opinion about…? Why do you think that?

Examples of questions that will help your child to identify and comment on the structure and organisation of texts

Were you surprised by the ending?
What is the main event of the story? Why do you think this?
What kind of text is this? How do you know?

Examples of questions that will help your child to explain and comment on the writers’ uses of language

What do these words mean? Why do you think the writer chose them?
Look for some verbs / adjectives / adverbs – what do these words tell us about…?
Why do you think the author chose this title?
Which words and / or phrases best describe the story?

Questions that will help your child to comment on writers’ purposes and viewpoints and the overall effect of the text on the reader

Can you think of another story that has a similar theme?
Why do you think the author chose this setting?
What was the most exciting part of the story?

Examples of questions that will help your child to relate texts to their social, cultural and historical contexts

Do you know any other stories like this?
Does this story remind you of anything that has happened to you?
If you were in the story, what would you have done instead?

How Reading is Taught

At school reading can be taught in a combination of ways:

Here are some examples of activities that you could use at home to support your child’s reading.

The Look and Say method (sometimes known as the Whole Word or Sight method) where a child learns to recognise a word by sight through looking at it a number of times.
The Whole Sentence method is similar to Look and Say except a child memorises a whole sentence which usually has an accompanying picture.
The Phonic method uses the sounds of letters or letter groups. By learning the sounds a child has a strategy for de-coding a word which can be 'sounded out'.

Activities

Common Objects

Collect several objects that begin with the same sound and make a card with this letter sound on it. Make a second group of objects beginning with a different sound and a card to go with those.

Discuss the sounds of the letters on the two cards with your child and shuffle the objects. Separate the cards on the floor and ask your child to put each object near the sound that it starts with. This activity can help your child to "hear" the first sound of a word.

Odd-one Out

Say a number of words, all but one of which begin with the same sound. See if your child can pick out the odd one. It can be helpful to have the corresponding objects there for the child to look at.

Which starts with a different sound to the others?

Sounds Scrapbook

Write a letter at the top of each page of a scrapbook. Concentrating on a few letters at a time collect pictures of objects that begin with those letters. Do not use as examples words where the first sound does not make its normal sound such as in giraffe, ship, cheese, thumb. Stick the pictures on the appropriate pages.

I-Spy

For small children the usual way of playing that starts 'I spy with my little eye something that begins with ....' can be too difficult. You can make this easier by providing a clue. 'I spy with my little eye something that barks and begins with ‘a'.

Fishing for Sounds

You will need a few cards with individual letters. Attach a paper clip to each card. Using a small stick with a string and magnet, your child fishes for letter sounds. If your child can say the sound of the letter he/she wins the card, otherwise you win it.

Sequencing the Letters in your Child's Name

Providing the individual letter cards for each letter of your child's first name can be a useful way to teach the sequence of letters. Remember you will need to write a capital for the first letter and lower case for the rest. If you want to print out the cards using a word processor use a font such as Century Gothic on PC which has not a. Show your child how to make the name first, before shuffling the cards for him/her to have a try. For a very long name work with the first few and build up a letter at a time.

'What does it start with?' Box

You will need:

A box
Several items each beginning with a different sound
Corresponding letter cards

This game is similar to the common objects game on the previous page, but the emphasis now is on recognising the sounds the letters make. Ask your child to choose an object from the box, to think what its first sound is (remember it is the sound you are looking for rather than the alphabet name) and then to match the object with the relevant card.

Sand Tray, Finger Paints or Glitter

Children enjoy writing letters with their fingers in a tray of sand or with finger paints. These ways provide good opportunities to teach correct letter formation.

Magnetic letters

Ask children to create words using magnetic letters. This helps their knowledge of words and sounds along with letter formation.

Word sorter

Sort words into groups according to different patterns and rules./ They can be sorted in any ways such as spelling patterns, letters, sounds and syllables.

Making Sentences

Read the book with your child so he/she is familiar with the story. Then simply use the first sentence from the reading book and copy it out on a strip of paper. Either write it out or if you use a word processor use a font such as Century Gothic (font size 36 at least). I suggest this font because it is important to use one that is similar to your child's reading book. Leave a double space in between each word. Now cut up the sentence into the individual words. For example:

Ask your child to make the sentence, "This is a dog.", using the individual words. At first you will probably need to help. When he/she has made the sentence ask your child to read it to you and encourage him/her to point to each word with a finger.

Islands

Words are spread out on the floor. An adult pretends to be a shark and gives a word to stand on (the safe island.) The child needs to read the correct word and to stand on it to be safe from the shark. This can be adapted with knocking down skittles.

Sound buttons and phoneme frame

Read some words from the book and draw the sound buttons underneath the word to show the number of sounds in the word. This can also be done by using a phoneme frame which involves placing each sound into a box. This helps children to familiarise themselves with the word.

It is really important that your child enjoys reading so please visit the library to encourage your child to read books that they enjoy. Please ensure that they read a variety of books. This can include stories, comics, and magazines for children, leaflets and even shopping lists!

Please record this in their reading record so that we can see what they have read.