Parents
How to support your child's reading at home
Reading is one of the most important skills your child will learn in the early years at school.
The ability to read unlocks the door to learning and without this vital skill children will struggle to access all other subjects.
It is well known that parents who regularly read with and to their children, and who act as good reading role models, play a vital part in their children’s development as readers. Getting dads and other males in the home reading with boys can be particularly helpful.
Below is some advice for supporting your child’s reading at home and some tips for motivating boys in particular to ensure they become confident and motivated readers.
Encouraging progress at home
Reading at home is very important, especially at these early stages. Encourage your child's interest in reading by getting into the habit of reading regularly with him/her every day.
Introducing the alphabet
The teacher will introduce your child to the alphabet, using a frieze such as the Oxford Reading Tree Alphabet frieze. Card Games are also used to teach children to make the connection between letters and sounds. The alphabet frieze is available for use at home.
Taking first steps towards reading
Try to find a quiet ten minutes every day to look at a book with your child. The more you read and talk about stories, the more confident your child will feel about handling books. Gradually, he or she will make the connection between the story you read aloud and the printed word. Children often have favourite stories they want to hear again and again. Having heard a story several times, they will 'read' it to themselves, memorising the words. This is an important step towards becoming a reader, and deserves your praise and encouragement.
The importance of talking
Children's oral language skills are crucial to their development as readers and writers. Talk helps all learners to shape and articulate their thoughts, engage with texts, question texts, and gather ideas for writing their own texts. Boys in particular benefit from sharing and reinforcing their thoughts and ideas through talk. Reading can often be perceived as a silent and solitary activity and this turns many children off. Talk helps to make reading meaningful and sociable and can be a very successful way of engaging children, particularly boys. Likewise, reading aloud to children of all ages will help to foster a love of reading.
Advice for getting boys in particular reading and writing
Be a reader yourself! Providing positive role models is very important. Seeing any adult, but particularly men, reading is crucial in showing boys that reading is OK.
It is also important to provide a rich range of engaging reading material. Boys tend to prefer fast-paced adventures, mystery, horror, humour and non-fiction. Be a member of your local library and help your son, or any boy, in your care to see what a wide range of reading material is on offer. Empowering boys to make their own choices of reading material is also important.
Finding time in your busy schedule to visit your library regularly and a quiet time in each day to read and talk with your child will be invaluable.
Books to buy for home
Project X
Project X books are available for you to order from any good bookshop, or direct from Oxford University Press. They can be bought in packs – an order form is available here – or individually. To buy them as individual books from Oxford University Press call this number: +44 (0) 1536 741727.
Oxford Reading Tree
You may want to have some of the Oxford Reading Tree books at home to support your child’s reading development. Books about Biff, Chip and Kipper are also published in a ‘Read at Home’ format – providing more stories for your children to enjoy with you.
Other great books from Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press publishes a wide range of books that boys (and girls!) will love – see a selection here.
