Reading at Home

Reading at Home 

How it begins                           

To be ready to start reading, children need to have a variety of skills in place. These skills are taught at school through phase 1 phonics. The early reading skills developed through this phase include rhyming activities, listening activities, alliteration and sound discrimination. 

Parents can help at home with phase 1 phonics by- 

Encouraging your child to listen to the sounds they can hear during your day, such as on the way to school or whilst out shopping.   

See if your child can distinguish between loud and quiet sounds.

Play I-spy games and match objects which begin with the same sound.  

Early Reading in Pre-School and Nursery 

In pre-school and nursery early reading is around developing the children’s interest in books, singing songs and rhymes and developing talking and listening skills. 

During this early stage your child will bring home a fiction book or a book with few or no words. These are for you to share with your child, discussing the pictures and talking through the story and asking your child questions about what they can see. After reading the story share your favourite part and link it to their own experiences where appropriate.  

Ways that parents can help with developing early reading skills- 

Singing nursery rhymes, songs and poems 

Reading stories to children and telling stories from memory  

Encourage children to recognise familiar signs and logos  

Talking with children about the world around them to develop language  

Early Reading in Reception 

When your child starts reception, they should be ready to start to learn letter sounds. They will initially be taught the letter names and sounds for each letter in the alphabet and then taught to blend these sounds from left to right starting with cvc words such as cat and dog. During their phonics lessons your child will also be taught tricky words such as ‘I’ and ‘go’. These are words that your child cannot use their phonic knowledge to read and we will teach your child to recognise them on sight.  

Your child will bring home 2 reading books, the first will be a Little Wandle Big Cat book that is at your child’s phonics level with sounds they can recognise, sound out and blend. You can help by running your finger under each sound and then encouraging them to blend the sounds together.  

The second will be a book for pleasure from our class lending library. This book is to share and enjoy as a family.

Parents can help with reading in reception by- 

Encourage your child to look at any pictures in the reading book to get an idea of what the story is about. Talk to your child about the pictures. 

Your child will try to work out unknown words by using letter sounds and this should be encouraged. If your child is struggling to blend the sounds to read a word, you can help your child work it out by looking at other words in the sentence.  

Talk about the book as much as possible. Ask your child to explain what happened or ask questions about the story.  

Draw attention to punctuation marks and help them to read with feeling, e.g. “Hooray!” they shouted. 

Reading is fun!  

Here at Greenhill, we strive to promote a love for reading. We ensure that, from Pre School all the way up to Year 6, children learn to read and read to learn. Each class has access to their own class library and as well as this, we have a well-stocked library which enjoyed by all. The children engage in inspirational reading events across the year as well as story time at the end of each day. 

School Systems 

Your child will be given a reading book that suits their ability and a home/school reading diary which are to be taken home each day. When your child does individual reading in school, the class teacher or teaching assistant will write a comment in the diary and when they read at home, we encourage parents/carers also write a comment so that communication can occur. It is strongly advised that your child reads at home daily. 

Moving on – Reading for understanding  

In Key Stage One, children continue to progress through the reading book bands as directed by the teacher. In Year Two, children will move on to the Accelerated Reader programme, which they will continue with until they leave Primary School. Children complete an online Star Test to assess their reading age and are then given a Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) number that they can choose their reading books from. If a child is not yet ready to begin the Accelerated Reader programme, they will take part in Star Early Literacy which allows them to build on their phonics skills. 

Online Reading: Myon 

We subscribe to MyON which is linked to Accelerated Reader.  Here you will find over 6,000 digital books which you and your child can choose from. Attached at the bottom of this page is a parental help guide to get you started.  

Here is a link to the MyON website: https://www.myon.co.uk/  

Guide for parents: Click Here

Video supoprt for using MyOn

How to find a text on myon