Teaching Early Reading

We strive to teach the children the key skills to be able to read, as well as a passion and love for books and reading. We provide an environment conducive to this by ensuring children are exposed to a rich variety of texts, opportunities to share and enjoy books and the role models they need to experience why reading is so great!

Guided Reading is a dedicated, accurately planned session during which children are taught the skills to become confident, independent and motivated readers. Skills we teach include; application of phonics to decode words, self-correction, self-monitoring, omission to work out unknown words, reading for meaning and inference.

We have collated some tips and suggestions to help parents' effectively support their children when reading at home. Use the information below to understand the key skills and strategies we use with children to enable them to become independent and confident readers.

Reading with your child at home

At school your child will choose a book of their choice, from the phonics phase and set they are working on. You can support your child by reading with them for at least 10 minutes every day and making a note in their reading record, to communicate with your child's class teacher. 

Discussing books with your child at home

Alongside supporting your child with their word reading, it is also important for children to develop their comprehension skills. You can do this by talking about the text and encouraging your child to ask and answer questions. Below are some examples of questions that could prompt discussion with you child.

• Why did you choose this book?
• What do you like about the front cover?
• What do you think it is going to be about?
• What is the title of the book?
• Who is the author?
• Do you think it is fiction or non-fiction?

• Encourage your child to use their phonics to sound out any words they are unsure of.
• How is the character feeling?
• Why do you think the character decided to ______?
• What do you think is going to happen next?
• What can you tell me about the story so far?
• How would you have felt if you were the character?

• Discuss any new vocabulary learnt during the book.
• Did you enjoy the book? What did you enjoy about it?
• What was your favourite part of the story? (Fiction)
• What facts and information did you learn? (Non-fiction)
• Can you retell the story in your own words?
• Did the book remind you of anything you have experienced?

Some useful documents and links

Visit https://home.oxfordowl.co.uk/ to find many more books to read with your child at home. You can select a book based on your child's book band or browse together and choose a book the like.  Each class has login details to Oxford Owl, if you are unsure of you child's log in details please ask your child's class teacher.