OPS Education Space

Tips for Reading at Home with your Child

Reading at home with your child is a rite of passage as a parent of primary school aged children. Listening to them work their way through each word on the page, patiently waiting for them to make the sounds, trying really hard not to say it for them and experiencing the excitement when they say a ‘tricky word’ correctly, it all sounds so effortless. But aside from listening to them read, what do you do when they can’t say or misread the word? How do you know whether they have understood what they are reading? At home, you aren’t expected to ‘teach’ your child to read, rather than support them and strengthen the skills they are learning at school.

Many parents ask their child’s teacher how they can support them improve their reading when at home and ask for specific strategies to focus on. In the classroom, we implement a raft of strategies that are dependent upon where your child is at and know when to introduce the next. At home, the most important thing is to read regularly with your child and make reading together time you both look forward to.

The following tips are from the blog post ‘Home Reading: a guide for parents’ by Holly from Teach Starter. The post also has a video so as you can see these tips in action. The text that follows is taken from the blog post

Holly’s 7 Tips

Make it routine. Find a quiet, comfortable spot that is the go-to reading spot.
Before you start to read the book, ask simple questions about the cover and story.
If they get stuck on a word, don’t tell them straight away.
Encourage them to use their reading strategies. Otherwise, they will expect you to tell them the words they get stuck on every time.
Let them hear you reading the story and let them follow. Make some silly mistakes to see if they are following along. They will love correcting you!
Ask them a couple of questions at the end to encourage comprehension.
Make it fun and enjoyable!

Remember that in the early years, your child is learning the ‘code’ of how the English language is put together. So, when your child is stuck on a word, have them focus on chunking the sounds or syllables. Strategies like ‘look at the picture to help you’ or ‘read around the word to find out what it could be’ aren’t considered best practice anymore as they encourage the child to guess rather than apply their knowledge of how to ‘decode’.

Here is a list of possible questions you can ask. As they move through the years of school, their comprehension, or understanding of what is happening in the book. So, starting with simple questions that stimulate their curiosity and make connections with their own experiences is a great way to make them think about what they are reading.

Before you read the book:

What do you think is going to happen?
Who do you think is going to be in the story?
What problems might arise?
What sort of words do you think we will see?
From looking at the front cover, what do you think the book is about?

As you read or at the end of the book:

What does this text remind you of?
How does it make you feel?
Is it similar to another book you have read? How?
Do you know any other books by this author or illustrator?
Do the characters remind you of someone in your life?
How is this different to your life?
Who might find this book useful?

Questioning

What questions were in your head while you were reading?
What were you wondering?
What do you want to know more about?
Was there anything you weren’t sure about?
What questions would you ask the author?
Is there something that puzzles you?

Delia Robey

Year 3 and 4 PLC Leader, Education Sub Committee Convenor