Helping with Home Reading

By Gillian Cornwell of Busy Mothers

Starting Kindergarten is a big step.  An even bigger step is learning to read.  Watching kindergarten children turn into readers is always amazing.  Teachers do lots of activities in the classroom to promote literacy and help children grasp basic reading concepts - letter recognition, sound work, sight words, matching games, bingo, the list goes on and on.

And parents are enlisted to help as well with Home Reading.  Most schools have systems in place where children are sent home a book or two for a few days or a week. These books are expected to be read every night.  The practice is obviously beneficial and children love to show off what they can do.

But what if you are not a teacher and are unsure how to help?  Don’t worry - taking the time to listen every day to your child, reading to them every night and encouraging them all go a long way to help.  But if you also want a few more strategies her are some tips from Busy Mothers. things you can do to help your child practice their reading at home.

Here are a few quick Tips for Helping Your Child With Home Reading from Busy Mothers

Before reading for the first time

1. Discuss the title - before reading the story, discuss what the story could be about, look at the title and the pictures on the front cover and predict what the story might be about

2. Look at the pictures - before reading go through and look at the pictures, discuss what they are showing, predict what the story might be, what will happen on the next page etc

Knowing the basic story assists children predict what the words will be and how the story should go, this all helps children read as they have a sense of what the story will be telling them.

When reading every night

1. Read all the text - title, illustrator, title pages, speech bubbles, labels , read every piece of the text on the page.

2. Discuss the story as you go - ask 'wh' questions, why, what, where when, how.  These allow the children to interact with the text, to make predictions to consolidate their understanding of what is happening.

3. Talk—about what might happen next when the story is over, what happened, why things happened, what they liked and didn’t like about the story

4.  Read - similarly themed stories together, other stories in the same series, by the same author

Helping with new words

There are lots of strategies you can use to help your child read new and unfamiliar words.

1. Look at the starting letter - get the children to predict what it might be

2. Sound the word out - assit when letters and souns do not correspond such as when 'c' says 's'

3. Look at the pictures for clues - what is happening in the illustrations that can help with the story

4. Predict what the word should be - if they cant sound out lorry they may realise that the word should be truck, you can then explain that lorry is a type of truck and praise them for understanding what they are reading.

Reading is a wonderful thing to o with your child.  Don't be worried about saying or doing the wrong thing, just enjoy hearing, reading and sharing stories.