1. Helping your child to read
Tips when reading:
Talk about pictures
Model pointing to each word (not slide beneath)
Ask child to copy
Allow child to correct themselves
If child doesn’t know a word – try different strategies to support
Encourage child to say sounds in words and blend sounds together
Give lots of praise
Try and ensure your child makes sense of / understands what they have read.
After reading:
Can child point to and read the key words? Can they find the same word(s) in other books?
Discuss the story and characters. Can child re-tell the story in their own words looking at the pictures?
Give lots of praise
How to encourage reading?
Let child see family/different people read books, newspapers, recipes, food packets
Write shopping lists together
Encourage child to write birthday, thank you cards etc
Read a bedtime story every night if possible

2. Reading: concepts & skills
Children need to understand:
Words written the same way have the same meaning
Written words give a message
Words on the front of a book are the title
Pictures can give meaning to the words
Words on a page are read left to right
The same spoken and written words have the same meaning
How words are expressed adds meaning
Describing parts of books:
Front and back
Cover
Page
Title
Author
Illustrator
Blurb
Top/ bottom of page
Picture/ illustration
Word/ sound
First / last
Beginning, middle, end
Speech
Capital letter
Full stop
Bold type
Exclamation mark !
Question mark ?
Give children the chance to:
Talk about what has happened in pictures
Use pictures to predict what might happen
Retell a story in the correct sequence
Look at, point to and say words on a page
Point out high frequency words
Point out some upper and lower case letter
Talk about elements of the text that give specific meaning

3. Helping your child to write
Tips to encourage writing:
Praise any attempt at writing
Ask, Can you read what you have written?
Let child see you writing
Encourage tripod pencil grip
Talk through letter formation
Act out letter formation: magic wand, light sabre, sand, foam, mud, paint
Letter families
Curly caterpillar: c a d g o q s f e
Ladder: l i j t u y
One armed robot: r m n h b p k
Zig zag monsters: v w z x
Methodology
Nelson handwriting scheme – letter families
Helps children remember starting point and movement of letter
Practice in short time slots: 5 minutes/ day

4. Helping with Phonics How to help with phonics:
Focus on the weekly sounds, letters and tricky words
Play games, point out the above in newspapers/ magazines/ books
Sing nursery rhymes and songs, encourage listening
Play I spy, show that every word begins with a letter

5. Letter formation

6. Word Packs What are they?
Contain key words that children need to know by sight
13 different word packs
A word can appear twice with a lower case or capital first letter
Parent helper will change the word pack when child has read the words correctly on 3 separate occasions
Helping to learn words
Memory game – place a small number of words on a table, child covers eyes, you remove a card, child names the missing card
Pairs – Copy set of words, face all down and turn to find matching pairs
Grab – make a smaller list of words (from pack), turn pack words face down, turn over and if it matches , grab the word or turn back over
Flash cards – give words in a random order, ask child to put words into a short sentence
Word detective – give child a word, ask him to find it in his reading book/ any book
Keeping track
A master list is kept in the back of child’s reading record