Tips For Reading With Children

One of the most important things you can do for your child is to develop their love of books early on in life. It really is key to their future learning and success – being able to read gives access to everything!

• Why?
• When?
• How Long?
• Where?
• Who?
• How?

Why?

• It will extend their vocabulary
• It will develop their imagination
• It will help them find things out
• It will give you quality time together to develop your bond. Quiet reading time is a great opportunity for your child to tell you how they feel or what they’ve been doing. It’s a time when they know they’ll have your undivided attention.

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When?

• Little and often! Teachers try to hear children read as often as they can but you’re in a much better position for one-to-one reading!
• As part of your daily routine. Set aside a time when you know you won’t be rushed. Reading with your child should be a pleasurable daily activity which, over time, will become as natural a part of their daily routine as cleaning their teeth before bed.
• At roughly the same times each day. Before school or in the holidays, in the morning, after bath time, straight after tea… whenever you choose, it’s important your child knows when to expect story time. You can always set different times for when you read to them and when they read to you.

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How long?

Let your child be your guide! Ten to fifteen minutes of reading together is usually long enough, unless they ask for more or wish to read on. Don’t force your child to read with you if they don’t want to. It’s a sure-fire way to put them off books for life! Agree to do something else and then try again later.

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Where?

• A special place is best. Choose your biggest, comfiest armchair or sofa. Or set up a reading corner with rugs and cushions, a quiet corner of the garden or snuggled under the duvet. Your child needs to feel happy and settled to enjoy the story or concentrate on the words.
• Somewhere with no distractions!  Switch off the TV, put your mobile on silent, turn off the cooker and the computer. Multi-tasking is a no-go – your child needs your full attention!
• In a position where you can both see the book. Silly as it sounds, this is important! It’s hard to enjoy the story if you can’t see the pictures or if the book can’t be opened fully.

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Who?

• A regular reader. To see how your child is progressing, it’s a good idea for the same person to read with your child most of the time.
• The back-up team. Make learning to read a real family affair. Enlist the help of nan and granddad, older brothers, sisters, cousins – and make it fun!

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How?

• Be a fantastic role model. Children naturally copy what they see their parents doing, so read, read, read! It doesn’t matter whether it’s books, magazines, newspapers, footie results, recipes, e-mails or instruction manuals – you’ll be showing your child that reading is enjoyable and useful in the wider world, not just in school.
• Keep it up! Even when children are reading fluently on their own, it’s important to keep reading aloud to them. It allows them to immerse themselves in the story without having to work out what all the words say. They’ll begin to enjoy the language of stories, develop their imagination, extend their vocabulary and build up their interest in the written word.
• Paired reading. Let your child hold the book and put them in charge of turning the pages. Read the words aloud, pointing to them as you say them. If they have a natural rhyme, your child might start to say some of the words with you. Or the pictures or context might give them clues as to what the next word is. If they want to read at the same time as you or have a go on their own, that’s great! Invent a signal that you both know means “I want to have a go now”. Help with a word if they get stuck or take the lead again if they want you to. It’s all about encouraging reading with as few stumbling blocks as possible. Give them a feel for what being able to read independently is.
• Independent reading. Very young children who can’t read yet still enjoy choosing books and looking at the pictures. They’re learning the basics until the time when they begin to read to themselves for pure enjoyment. They’ll use all the strategies they know to make sense of the text they are reading – picture and context clues, phonic awareness, sight vocabulary, blending, decoding. You need to be there to support them, to give help when needed and to praise when they get it right.
• Ask questions. Being a good reader comes from understanding the book, not just reading the words. When children are just starting out, ask questions like which way up the book is supposed to go? Where do they start reading? Where are the words? What’s happening in the pictures? As your child progresses, you could ask what the characters are doing, feeling or saying. Choose books together and talk about the title and cover picture – do they give clues about the story?
• Ask more questions! Before you start reading, ask what has already happened in the book, who is in the story and what they’re doing Ask your child what they think will happen next. But don’t overdo this so it makes your child feel it is a test.
• Make it fun! You can really draw your child into the world of a story by reading in different voices and adding sound effects. Build up their anticipation by peeking at the following page to see what happens next and teasing them. Is it too scary or exciting or funny for them to see, perhaps?
• Give lots of clues! Help your child work out the words by giving time, using the pictures to help them work out the words or by emphasising the rhyme in a rhyming book.
• Gotcha! As your child gets more confident, you can start playing a few tricks to see if they can catch you out. Try holding the book upside down or start in the wrong place. Or miss a word out in their favourite book and they’ll usually tell you exactly which word you forgot to say!
• A picture’s worth a thousand words. Don’t be afraid to use books with lots of pictures but few or even no words. Children use these to improve book language, to tell the story and to develop other skills whilst not having to worry about the words.

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1. Just keep calm, keep going and be encouraging. Don’t get frustrated if your child appears to make little or no progress at first. If you start to worry, your child will too – and that makes it harder to learn. Children develop skills at different rates and speeding up and slowing down can happen many times on the road to becoming fluent readers. Think of it like a journey. Sometimes they’ll be in the outside lane of the motorway and sometimes they’ll be stuck on a B-road behind a tractor! They’ll reach their destination in the end!
2. Don’t rush your child or try to move them on too fast. If you give your child a book that has too many unknown words, they’ll struggle too much and lose the flow of the story, which may well lead to them becoming a reluctant reader.
3. Don’t compare your child to their school friends, brothers or sisters. At the end of their first year in school, some children will be reading with confidence, some with support and some may only be starting to make sense of letters and sounds. All three are perfectly normal! If you do have any worries, go and see your child’s teacher– most of the time they’ll be able to reassure you that your child is doing just fine!
4. Give your child time to have a go if they get stuck at a new word. Don’t jump in too quickly. Let them self-correct or try using picture or contextual clues. Or sound out the word with them using the letter sounds and not their letter names. For example, if you’re sounding out the word ‘cat’, say cuh-ah-tuh, not see-ay-tee. Make sure not to over-emphasise the ‘uh’ sound, though!
5. Be positive at all times! If your child struggles to say a word correctly, that’s okay. Rather than tell him or her it’s wrong, suggest you read together and point to the words as you say them. Constantly boost your child's confidence with praise for even the smallest achievement. Confidence takes a long time to rebuild!
6. Talk about the book to check if your child understands what they’ve read. There’s little point in reading something you don’t understand or that doesn’t make sense! Remember, children are just like adults are when it comes to foreign languages. They may well know how to say the words but haven’t a clue what they actually mean!
7. The more multi-sensory you make reading-related activities and games, the more it will help your child to remember. Children learn in three ways - by hearing (aurally), seeing (visually) and doing (kinaesthetically).
8. Don’t forget that reading should be fun, so follow your child’s lead. When they switch off, it’s time for a break!
9. A little bit of competition is healthy! Build the excitement by using challenges like:
   • Who’ll be the first to find…?
   • Who can find the most…?
   • How many… can you find?
10. You can even set a time limit – one minute? Five minutes? Whichever you do, don’t always let your child win! And remember to congratulate the winner and possibly even give a sticker or a little prize. Sometimes reward your child for trying hard, not just getting it right.

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Knowing which books to choose for your child is not always easy. Children all develop at different paces, and their interests and abilities can differ greatly from each other. This is all perfectly normal, but it is important to match the books with your child’s particular needs.

But how do you know which books to choose?

The simplest answer is to try out different types of books and let your child guide you. The most important thing to remember is that children will enjoy learning to read more with books they are most interested in. Not so different from you and me, really!

Here are some tips to get you started...

• Variety is the spice of life, so let your child experience as many different kinds of reading material as possible
  • Try books about your child’s interests – do they like dinosaurs, football or witches and wizards?
  • Or books with big, bold, colourful illustrations.
  • And tactile books with things that can be moved or touched.
  • Try scary or funny books or ones with silly jokes!
  • Books to dip in and out of are perfect if your child doesn’t like sitting still for too long – try comic strip books and non-fiction.
  • Does your child like reading to have a purpose, for example, books that show you how to make things or tell you about things?
  • Does your child enjoy books about the same characters?
  • Or does your child enjoy a bit of fantasy, magic and make believe, or books with sparkle and glitter on the pages.
  • Books that have props with them are a real treat, too – dolls, soft toys, dressing-up clothes.
  • Reading a variety of books with role models of both sexes shows children that books are for everyone.
  • And don’t forget interactive books – books that sing and talk; why not try the Tag Reading System books.

And there’s no need to stay with just books...

• Point out words all around you constantly! On cereal boxes, signposts and shop fronts, on TV, letters, notes and birthday cards… your child will soon realise that reading is everywhere, not just in books.
  
• If you don’t have many books at home or are stuck for ideas, you can borrow books galore from your local library. They’ll have a selection of talking books on CD, too – your child will benefit from hearing lots of different people reading familiar and new stories. Many libraries also run fun sessions especially for children to get them interested in reading.
  
• Ask your local library or school if they have story sacks that you can borrow. What’s a story sack, you ask? It’s a sack (that much is obvious!) containing a story book plus a variety of items associated with it – for example soft toys of the characters, puppets, games, linked non fiction books, music, photos, activity sheets and DVDs, to name just a few!
  
• Again and again! Yes, you’ll be bored after reading the same story twenty times, but if your child wants to hear their favourite story again, smile, take a deep breath and read it! They’re linking the spoken and written word and improving their memory skills – and they love the predictability of an often read book.
  

If your home language isn’t English, don’t worry. There are plenty of dual-language books available. Have a look on the web, ask at the library or speak to your child’s teacher, who may be able to borrow some for you. Some schools, children’s centres and libraries also run classes to support parents helping their child to read, so look out for leaflets and posters.

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Children learn in a variety of ways. Understanding your child’s learning style can help provide you with the most effective route to making the process of learning easier!

Take the test to see what type of learner your child is and how you can help you child learn.

Find out with the help of our worksheet!

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• Movement Activities
• Speaking and Listening Activities
• Phonic Activities
• Reading and Word-Based Activities
• Downloadable Activities

Movement activities

Growing brains work better if you exercise them with motor skills activities. Do ‘big’ things like running, jumping and stretching and ‘small’ things like threading beads, picking things up or using dough. Then try cross-body exercises like getting your child to touch their right knee with their left hand and so on. They all help!

Speaking and listening activities

• Make up strings of rhyming words together – mat, fat, cat, sat or frog, dog, log!
• Play Simon says and sing lots of action rhymes. Very silly but a lot of fun!
• Use puppets to act out the story in a book or retell a familiar tale using storytelling language. You know how it goes: “Once upon a time…”
• Make shakers with different-sounding materials inside and ask your child to say the sound they make.

Phonic activities

• Make your own alphabet sound book. As your child learns their sounds, start a new page and stick or draw pictures onto it to reinforce the sounds.
• Make up silly sentences where every word starts with the same sound, for example Sally’s six sizzling spicy sausages or five friendly funny frogs!
• Sew or stick letters to beanbags. Throw the beanbags to each other. The first person to drop one has to think of a word beginning with that letter.
• Play I spy. Give big clues to start off with, for example I spy with my little eye something you wear on your head that starts with ‘huh’!
• Say a list of words that begin with the same sound but include one that doesn’t fit. Can they spot the odd one out? Try it with picture cards, objects or written words.
• Put lots of objects in a bag and then, pulling one out at a time, ask what they are and what sound they start with. Initially use items that all start with the same sound, and use a mix of initial sounds as your child gets the hang of it.

Reading and word-based activities

• Everywhere you go, read! Whether you’re out shopping, on the bus, in the doctor’s waiting room – point out all the words and symbols you see.
• Ask your child to find the letter their name begins with in an old magazine, gradually getting them to look for the other letters in their name, too. Help them cut the letters out and stick them to a card. Cut the card up and you’ve got a name jigsaw! This game is easier with easy names like Ben, rather than Gideon.
• Ask your child how many times they can find a specific letter in a magazine page. Set a time limit. Then move on to ask how many times they can find a whole word. Sometimes choose uppercase ‘H’ and sometimes lower case ‘h’ when the letters are different shapes.
• Plan a journey using timetables and maps.
• Make a cake together reading and using a simple recipe and decorate it with their initial. Or make small cakes for everyone in the family, each with their initial.
• Have a treasure hunt. Hide a little treat, then leave a trail of word or picture clues telling your child where to look next to find their treasure!
• Make shopping lists and follow them together at the shops.
• Use your child’s interests – football teams, dinosaurs, colours, ballet – to make up a jumbled list. See if they can put the items into alphabetical order. (This activity can be a little hard for younger children.)
• Use fridge or bath magnets to spell out words.
• Cut up a cartoon strip and ask your child to put it back together in the right order
• Homemade books are just as much fun as bought books – make your own books about visits, colours, numbers, your family, or whatever your child is interested in.
• Make or buy word cards and use them to make a simple sentence. For example, ‘This is a dog’. Add an illustration.
• Fish for words! You could buy a magnetic fishing game, but you can just as easily make your own at home. Attach paperclips to letters or word cards. Then tape a piece of string to an unsharpened pencil and tie a magnet to the other end to make a rod. If your child can say the sound of the letters or read the words they catch, they can keep them. If not, they’re yours!
• Using word, letter or picture cards, turn two cards over at a time to try and match up the pairs. There’s lots of scope here for card combinations here! For example, you could use individual words. Or upper and lower case letters. Or even word and picture cards together.

Even more fun! Downloadable activities to do with your child

Want some more? Then download our fun and easy activity sheets!

• Bag of sound Linking letters and sounds; memory skills - Download
• Handmade books Small motor skills; linking letters and sounds; early writing - Download
• Name game Linking letters and sounds; name recognition; awareness of print; small motor skills - Download
• Pairs Observation and memory; linking sounds and letters; word blending/decoding - Download
• Storytelling puppets Confidence; speaking and listening; using story language - Download
• Treasure hunt Speaking and listening; linking letters and sounds; word blending/decoding; concentration; logic; observation - Download

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Interactive Games

Click here to view the interactive games