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Reading Together

We would ask all parents to assist school in encouraging children to delight in the pleasure that books bring.

In Reception this involves talking about books, often books without words.  Children designing their own responses to the pictures and telling the story is an important part of learning to read.  In addition, children will bring home words to learn, these are the elements of developing a first reading vocabulary to open up the world of books to them.

Older children will also regularly have words to learn and we would encourage parents to read and share books at least every other day with their children.  Sometimes it is important that this is a sharing of books, maybe Mum or Dad read a page, then the child.  Maybe the parents read one evening and the child another, whatever seems appropriate at the time.  We would not like children to be forced to read as this will quickly become counterproductive!

For all children, the best aid to becoming a reader is to see reading being modelled by parents.  This may be a paper, a magazine or a book (either for fun or information).

Do not be surprised of an older child would prefer to read their magazine, comic or website page to you.  That is okay - after all any reading is good reading. 

Question children of all ages about their reading. There are many questions that can be asked to deepen understanding such as: What was the story about?  Was that a good ending? Why did a character do that? What might the character be feeling? What is going to happen now?  What might have happened if x had done y instead?  Would that have changed events?  Why? What would happen if someone else joined in the scene would people have acted differently?  Often asking questions such as these part way through helps a child to fully appreciate what is happening in a story and we are sure parents could think of many more similar questions.

Children bring home Reading Support booklets to provide parents with some additional ideas.  Should yours be mislaid please follow the link to see a copy for Reception, Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2. (Warning, these are formatted in printing format so pages are not necessarily in the correct order until printed and assembled).