Literacy News

How Children Learn to Read – and How You Can Help at Home

Learning to read is an exciting journey, and there are many skills that come together to help children become confident readers. At school, we explicitly teach children how words work, how to read them and how to understand what they read.

Our teachers are currently building their knowledge through professional learning (Including time on the school closure day) in Building Reading Knowledge, exploring the research and evidence behind effective reading instruction. This learning is helping us to continually strengthen the way we support our students as they develop their reading skills.

So, how do children learn to read?

Phonics is an important part of learning to read. Children learn that letters and groups of letters represent sounds. They then use this knowledge to decode – working out how to read unfamiliar words by putting the sounds together.

For example, a child who knows the sounds represented by sh, i and p can blend these sounds together to read ship.

With practice, children become more efficient at recognising words, allowing them to focus more of their attention on understanding the text. Reading is more than just working out the words. Once children can decode words, they also need to understand what they are reading. This is called comprehension.

Comprehension involves thinking about the text, understanding vocabulary, making connections, asking questions, making predictions and sometimes working out information that the author hasn't directly told us. This is why talking about books is just as important as reading the words!

How can you help at home?

There are lots of simple ways families can support reading:

• Read regularly – even a short amount of reading each day makes a difference. 
• Re-read favourite books – reading a familiar book again helps children become more fluent, confident and expressive.
• Talk about what you read – ask, “What happened?” “Why do you think that happened?” or “What was your favourite part?”
• Talk about interesting words – explain new vocabulary and encourage children to use new words in conversation.
• Keep reading enjoyable – share books together, visit the library and let children see that reading is something to enjoy.

Working together

The research tells us that learning to read is not something that happens by chance. It develops through explicit teaching, practice, encouragement and lots of opportunities to read and talk about books.

Our ongoing Building Reading Knowledge professional learning is helping our teachers deepen their understanding of how children learn to read and how we can best support every child to become a successful and confident reader.

Thank you for partnering with us and encouraging a love of reading at home!