Reading at Home
Reading practise at home should be enjoyable for all involved. They should be practising skills they are learning at school and most importantly, their take home books should be easy, to build confidence. At school they will be challenged with more difficult texts as part of Guided Reading sessions and our daily Literacy Block, but for home, the focus for reading is developing fluency and sounding like expert readers! This is also why we only change readers on Tuesday and Thursday – even if your child is reading it really well! (For more information on how reading levels are established, please see the ’Running Records’ section of this site).
Please remember that it is still really important for children to listen to competent readers read, so don’t be too quick to abandon reading those fantastic picture books to your child!
I appreciate all your efforts at home to support reading at school.
The Goals of Listening to Children Read:
- Read by themselves, with as little help as possible (i.e. read independently).
- Be able to work some words out on the spot, but not too many.
- To understand what they are reading, and check or stop when their reading doesn’t make sense.
Stages of Listening to Children Read:
Stage 1: Before Reading
Stage 2: During Reading
Stage 3: After Reading
* Breaking the reading task into small steps, reduces the stress on students, causing less chance for their brain to beome overloaded with the task of reading*
Stage 1: Before Reading
Before the child starts to read, it is important to do a book orientation with them. This orientation helps them to understand the meaning of the book before they start.
1. Talk about the pictures in the book before you read. (In picture books, the pictures often tell interesting bits of the story.)
2. Find words in the book that may be hard for the child to read. Work these words out with the child before they start to read.
3. Ask your child if they can predict what the story will be about / what might happen in the story, using the picture cues.
Stage 2: During Reading
Let the child be in control!
1. Let the child hold the book and turn the pages.
2. Let the child use a plastic strip (or other tool such as a bookmark or ruler etc.) if they need it to keep their place while reading.
3. If the child gets stuck, count to 10 before helping them. This gives them time to work out the problem for themselves.
4. If the child looks to you for help, keep looking at the book.
5. If they make a mistake, try not to interrupt them. If the mistake makes sense, let them keep reading on (during stage 3 you can focus on the mistake).
*Only help the child if they can’t keep reading, or if they’ve lost the meaning and their reading is not making sense.*
-MISTAKES-
- Wait for 10 seconds. Only help if the child can’t read on or meaning is lost.
- If the word is near the end of a sentence, point back to the beginning of the sentence and ask them to reread, (you can read with them, and say just the first sound of the unknown word when you get to it).
- If the word is near the beginning of a sentence , tell the child to miss the word out and read on to the end of the sentence. Then come back to the beginning of the sentence and have another go.
- If the child keeps missing out words, or putting extra ones in, tell them to point to each word as they go.
- If none of the above strategies work, and the child is still stuck, just tell them the word. (during stage 3 you can focus on the correction/s)
Stage 3: After Reading
Praise the child after they have finished reading the whole book.
Praise them for:
- Having a go
- Correcting mistakes for themselves
- Being able to read after you have helped them
- Stopping when their reading doesn’t make sense
Correcting Mistakes:
If the word was wrong but still made sense:
“You read that word as ‘road’. That makes sense, but it can’t be ‘road’ because it starts with ‘str’. Have another look at it to see if you can work it out.”
If the word was wrong and didn’t make sense:
Say something like, “You read that word as ‘river’, but that doesn’t make sense. have another look to see if you can work out what the word is.”
Reading practise at home should be enjoyable for all involved. They should be practising skills they are learning at school and most importantly, their take home books should be easy, to build confidence. At school they will be challenged with more difficult texts as part of Guided Reading sessions and our daily Literacy Block, but for home, the focus for reading is developing fluency and sounding like expert readers! This is also why we only change readers on Tuesday and Thursday – even if your child is reading it really well! (For more information on how reading levels are established, please see the ’Running Records’ section of this site).
Please remember that it is still really important for children to listen to competent readers read, so don’t be too quick to abandon reading those fantastic picture books to your child!
I appreciate all your efforts at home to support reading at school.
The Goals of Listening to Children Read:
- Read by themselves, with as little help as possible (i.e. read independently).
- Be able to work some words out on the spot, but not too many.
- To understand what they are reading, and check or stop when their reading doesn’t make sense.
Stages of Listening to Children Read:
Stage 1: Before Reading
Stage 2: During Reading
Stage 3: After Reading
* Breaking the reading task into small steps, reduces the stress on students, causing less chance for their brain to beome overloaded with the task of reading*
Stage 1: Before Reading
Before the child starts to read, it is important to do a book orientation with them. This orientation helps them to understand the meaning of the book before they start.
1. Talk about the pictures in the book before you read. (In picture books, the pictures often tell interesting bits of the story.)
2. Find words in the book that may be hard for the child to read. Work these words out with the child before they start to read.
3. Ask your child if they can predict what the story will be about / what might happen in the story, using the picture cues.
Stage 2: During Reading
Let the child be in control!
1. Let the child hold the book and turn the pages.
2. Let the child use a plastic strip (or other tool such as a bookmark or ruler etc.) if they need it to keep their place while reading.
3. If the child gets stuck, count to 10 before helping them. This gives them time to work out the problem for themselves.
4. If the child looks to you for help, keep looking at the book.
5. If they make a mistake, try not to interrupt them. If the mistake makes sense, let them keep reading on (during stage 3 you can focus on the mistake).
*Only help the child if they can’t keep reading, or if they’ve lost the meaning and their reading is not making sense.*
-MISTAKES-
- Wait for 10 seconds. Only help if the child can’t read on or meaning is lost.
- If the word is near the end of a sentence, point back to the beginning of the sentence and ask them to reread, (you can read with them, and say just the first sound of the unknown word when you get to it).
- If the word is near the beginning of a sentence , tell the child to miss the word out and read on to the end of the sentence. Then come back to the beginning of the sentence and have another go.
- If the child keeps missing out words, or putting extra ones in, tell them to point to each word as they go.
- If none of the above strategies work, and the child is still stuck, just tell them the word. (during stage 3 you can focus on the correction/s)
Stage 3: After Reading
Praise the child after they have finished reading the whole book.
Praise them for:
- Having a go
- Correcting mistakes for themselves
- Being able to read after you have helped them
- Stopping when their reading doesn’t make sense
Correcting Mistakes:
If the word was wrong but still made sense:
“You read that word as ‘road’. That makes sense, but it can’t be ‘road’ because it starts with ‘str’. Have another look at it to see if you can work it out.”
If the word was wrong and didn’t make sense:
Say something like, “You read that word as ‘river’, but that doesn’t make sense. have another look to see if you can work out what the word is.”