Many parents ask us how best to support their child with reading. Below are a few helpful tips for early readers.

• First of all make sure that you and your child are comfortable and that any distractions, such as the TV, are minimised.  A reading session should be no more than 10 minutes to start with.
• Talk about the book, the title and the characters.  Encourage your child to predict what might happen.
• If your child has a book with no words, encourage them to talk through the story and then to tell it more formally using time connectives such as first, then, next.  They should try to recall the character names and look closely at the pictures.
• Once your child is able to read Set 1 sounds and blend sounds together to read simple words, they will be issued with a book containing words.  They should be encouraged to point to each word, say the letter sounds and then blend them together.  If the flow of the story is interrupted by their sounding out, they should be encouraged to re-read the sentences in order to hear the sense of the text. 
• Encourage your child to decode words using the sounds they know.  They should be supported to recall short words e.g. 'in, is, it' when they see them repeated.  Red words (words which cannot be sounded out) e.g. 'the, was' should also be pointed out. 
• It is important that children still talk about the books and extract further meaning from them.  Below you will find a list of useful questions to ask your child.
• It is also important to encourage children to read in real life situations e.g. in shops, on trips and around the home.  It is also important that children seen adults as readers and that adults model reading in a range of contexts. 
• Making trips to the library, reading stories to your child, reciting poems and rhymes and making reading meaningful will help your children to develop a love of reading and become a confident reader.
• Above all, reading should be seen as fun and not a chore!