Parental Involvement

Helping with reading

We believe that every child has the right to learn to read and that it is a vital skill that they master as soon as they can.

Reading is very important in our school, we have invested a great deal in new reading books and resources to make this enjoyable.

Children read and have focused phonics lessons every day. Every class visits the town library regularly. We welcome authors, poets and storytellers to school to enthuse children.

We invite parents and grandparents in to help with reading and to join in with storytimes. Parents are a valuable source of help when teaching young children to read.

Key Messages from our 'Reading Workshop'

• All children will benefit from daily practice at home
• play lots of games with the sound cards children bring home to see how many words they can make
• Read lots of stories, children need good 'story' language to enable them to become good readers
• talking to your children and encouraging them to ask questions really helps their ability to read
• Children will only bring home reading books with words in when they can successfully blend some sounds together to read words ie can see that s-a-m says sam until then they will have picture books with no words to encourage language and storytelling as well as story books to share with you
• When children have books with words, continue to talk a lot about the pictures.
• Books should be read at least 3 times; the first time just to sound out the words and look at the pictures, the second time time to use a 'storyteller voice' and the third time to ask questions about what is happening.
• The books that children bring home will be easier than the books they are learning to read from in school as they are designed to give the children the opportunity to practise