Reading books will be changed on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. All home reading books are sub-levelled specifically at ‘instructional’ level for your child. This means the books that are sent home will be stretching your child within their reading (these levels are also used within our ‘Guided Reading’ sessions in class) and are not based purely on reading ability but on an understanding of the text.

It is ideal if you can read daily with your child for 10 or 15 minutes each day. Encourage the ‘sounding’ out of words and if your child misreads a word ask them to ‘check’ the sentence that they have just read. Does it make sense? Encourage your child to hold their book themselves, to run their finger under the words to make sure they do not miss a word or line out, but ideally they should be encouraged to follow the words purely with their eyes. Encourage pausing at full stops and help them develop a sense of expression when characters speak within the text, so the book sounds interesting.

It may help at times for you to read a section of the book and then your child reads a section. In this way children learn to read with expression from mimicking better readers than themselves. It also can give them a break so they can enjoy the story.  Read the book again in the week – it is amazing what you will find from a second read through and your child will have gained in confidence from a familiar book that they have already read. All of this is good practice and helps children become independent readers so that they can begin to read on their own for pleasure.

At the end of the home reading books there are question prompts which you can work through with your child so you can check that they have understood what they have read. Simple questions such as: Who was the main character? Why do you think that person said ...? Why do you think they did …? Why do you think these words are written in bold writing? Why are these words written in capital letters?

Children will also be given in their reading book a character description or a book review. These do not have to be completed every time but it is a good way for children to show what they have understood from the book they have read. These character descriptions and book reviews will be collated in a ‘Big Class’ book and children will be encouraged to read what other children have written about the books they have been reading. They are valued as a piece of work in themselves.