Almost every night we send home a book for your child to read.  It is a valuable chance for you to
become involved in your child’s learning. It is a chance for you to have 5-10 minutes of uninterrupted time together.

As teachers we are often asked questions about reading at home. Here are a few thoughts.

When should I read
with my child?

Find or make a regular time of day when you can have a short
period of uninterrupted time. Take into account your child’s best time…after
school, before dinner, after bath, at the breakfast table. All of these choices
can be good. Just get a routine going so there are no arguments, it is just
‘reading time’.  Of course you may have a
particularly bad night and reading cannot happen, we understand.

How do I start? Am I
expected to introduce the book?

Make sure you are both comfortable, the book is in front of
your child, you can see the words,  your
child can turn the pages and feels in control.

Yes, a book introduction is a fabulous way to start as it
will give the child some clues about what the book may contain. You may like to
talk about the title and picture on the front. You may like to guess what might
happen. If your child is a beginning or early reader then looking at the
pictures in the whole  book. Discussing
what is happening will provide them with some valuable clues and vocabulary.
Don’t read all the words but pick out any hard words and use them as you talk
about the pictures on the page. Laugh about it and let them see you are
enjoying the book too. Your child will then be ready to read to you.

The book is too easy!
Why are they bringing home an easy book?

Take home books are not designed to be a battle or make you
feel like you have to be the teacher. They need to be getting easy by the time
you have finished reading together. That way, by the time the book is read at
school to the parent helpers or teacher – fluency, phrasing and intonation are
starting to happen. Use this as a time to build self-confidence and motivation.

Praise your child’s efforts – say things
like- Your reading sounds wonderful! Go and read that page to grandma, it will
knock her socks off! You sound like you are in grade 3, not prep! I love the
way you re-read that bit so it made sense! Let me video that page on my phone
and play it back to you….it sounds awesome!

The book is too hard!
What can I do?

Sometimes a book is in the wrong box or for some reason a
hard book comes home. If this is happening every night then tell the teacher!
If your child is getting words wrong in every sentence then the book is too
hard. It is unenjoyable and your child will gain little motivation or learning
from the experience. Here are a few tips

• Introduce the book (see above). This will help
  establish the meaning and vocabulary.
• Read the book with your child. Share it. You
  read, they read. A page, sentence or paragraph. You be the model for fluency
  and expression!
• Read the book to your child. Use this as an
  exercise in understanding a book. Ask them something, a question about what has
  happened, a character, an opinion, a prediction.
• WAIT! As your child is reading they will make an
  error. Don’t step in immediately. Give the child’s brain time to organise and
  process their own strategies for reading. They may start re-reading the
  sentence or correct their mistake. They may try again and still make a mistake.
  This is all good practise. After 3-5 seconds if you think they are nearly
  there, prompt them. Just tell them the word otherwise and keep the book
  flowing.
• Don’t
  encourage continual sounding out of a word. This slows down the reading. It is
  rarely necessary to encourage more than an occasional look at beginning or
  ending sounds. It takes away from using other clues like the meaning (does that
  make sense?) or the structure of the sentence (does that sound right?)
• Allow your child to make mistakes without always
  correcting them or asking them to re-read. Make it fun! Just as you let a 2
  year old make occasional grammatical errors when they are learning to talk,
  choose to ignore some of their errors when they are learning to read.
• Praise your child’s efforts regardless! Words
  from you like- Great teamwork! You tackled that and didn’t give up! You
  understood that book I read really well! That’s what good readers do…they try
  and work it out!

To summarise in 4
words starting with P:

PREPARE, PAUSE, PROMPT, PRAISE!

Finally, remember that you don’t have to be the teacher,
just the loving parent who wants the best for your child. We are in this
together- teacher, parent, child- all wanting the same thing. Happy reading!!