Reading
Helpful hints for helping your child with reading
- Please do not rely on the school reading scheme alone – It is there as the basis for reading but it is important that your child reads different kinds of books too.
- Ensure that your child fully comprehends the book by asking questions – Children can easily memorise simple words in books but it is also important that they are able to comprehend what they are reading. You can help children’s comprehension by talking about the story and the pictures and asking questions.
- Do not compare your child’s reading skills (or any other learning) to any other child’s – Children learn at extremely different rates and just like the way they grow physically, they may have ‘spurts’ at different times. If your child is reading at a lower phase than another child, it doesn’t mean that this is always going to be the case. If you are worried about this, your child will pick up on it. Let your child develop at their own rate. If they require any additional intervention we will provide the support that they need and we will discuss this with you.
- Most importantly, your child needs to develop a love of reading – They will do this by reading lots of different books that capture their interest. They won’t develop this by reading the same sentences over and over again. An old wise teacher I once worked with said ‘A story a day turns children into readers’. Children love having stories read to them, it develops their imagination, their language and their reading.
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The link below is to a document which shows how reading is embedded into daily life at Haddenham St Marys and the different ways we encourage a love of reading.
The children take books home each week from our wide range of genres and topics, and the books chosen are linked to the phonics phases they are learning. Children read to an adult in school during the week. This is recorded in the their reading record. Children may be heard by the teacher, headteacher, teaching assistants or school volunteers and parent helpers. All volunteers and parent helpers have up to date DBS checks.
Reading Carousel
We have a ‘Read, Write and Sparkle’ session each day where the children are either reading to an adult or independently working on a carousel of reading, handwriting and spelling activities.
We use our own carefully developed assessment system to track the children’s progress in phonics and reading.