1. Reading
with your child
How best to support your child in
becoming a independent and confident reader

2. Today’s session...
•To share ways of helping children to
enjoy texts and become confident
readers
•To provide prompts for developing
basic reading skills
• A chance to discuss with others
about reading with your child at
home

3. Introducing the text
•Discuss the title.
•Discuss the pictures.
•Ask children to point out anything interesting in the pictures and
talk about what might be happening at that point in the story.
•What do you think is going to happen in the story?
•Has this ever happened to you?
•What do you already know about.....?
•Introduce new or difficult vocabulary before you start reading.
•NOW the child is ready to read.

4. Sources of information children use to
decode
• Children learn to read in many different ways, using many
different sources of information
• Pictures
• Phonics-letter/sound knowledge
• Quick recognition of sight words
• Visual-the way the word looks
• Meaning-predicting words through context
• Grammar-predicting words using sentence structure

5. Sources of information children use to
decode
PICTURES are an important source of information
•Pictures in a text are hugely important in enabling a child to
predict text and should be used together with a second
source of information e.g. at the emergent level we may
prompt by saying “Get your mouth ready to say the first letter
and check the picture for a clue.” At a slightly higher level,
such as blue a prompt such as “find any small words in big
words that you know and check the picture...”

6. Phonics
• 44 phonemes/sounds in the English language
• Phonemes put together to construct some simple words BUT
NOT ALL!
• 65% of all words are phonetically irregular.
• Many letters combine to produce ‘new’ sounds eg -ch -th
-sh -igh
• Some sounds are represented by different graphemes e.g. m-
ow d-ough r-oa-d
Sounding out is one way a child can decode an unknown word
BUT it is not the only way.

7. Using phonics and/or visual
prompts to support reading
•Can you sound these letters together (e.g. c-a-t)
• Robot speak!
•Are there any parts/chunks of the word you can read? (e.g.
st-art-ed started).
•What sound do these letters together make? (e.g. n – ight
night).
• Does it look right, does it match the letter sounds in the
word?

8. Using Meaning
as a source of information
• Meaning is paramount and is the only reason for reading!
• Confidence in own spoken language enables a reader to
predict text through their own knowledge and experience.
• Understanding the text at every stage allows a reader to
predict and make an informed attempt at an unknown
word.
• Having prior knowledge about the story promotes
engagement with text and allows the reader to decode
AND understand new vocabulary.

9. Using Meaning
to support reading
• Talk about the text before reading to engage the child
with the subject.
• Introduce any subject specific vocabulary before reading.
• Ask questions about the text at each stage to ensure the
child UNDERSTANDS the words they are reading.
• At unknown words, prompt by discussing the story and
encourage children to think logically about the story e.g.
Child reads: Dad is going to climb the sausages. - “Does
that make sense? What does Dad have to do to sausages
before he can eat them?”
• Allow them to read on to have a go at fixing up their error

10. Using grammar or structure as a
source of information to decode
GRAMMAR/STRUCTURE
•Children have a inherent understanding of sentence
structure through spoken language.
•They can predict whether a word fits in a sentence simply by
using this knowledge. E.g. Child reads: “Here came the rain!”
This does not ‘sound right’ because it is the wrong tense.

11. Use grammar and structure
prompts to support reading
• Does that sound right?
• Is that how we say it?
• Can you say that another way?
• What word could you fit in there so that the
sentence will sound right?

12. Pause, Prompt, Praise Strategy
Our responses depend on the nature of the error the child makes!
When an error is made For Correct Reading
Pause
1.Praise when a child reads a
and give the child a sentence or page correctly
chance to work it out 2. Praise when a child self-
corrects
If the mistake If the mistake
If the child just
3. Praise when a child gets a
does not make does not sound word correct after a prompt
stops reading
sense right
If the word is not correct after 2
prompts
Calmly say ...
Prompt with Prompt with
questions about
Prompt the child
to “The word is _____.”
questions about re-read or read
the meaning of structure on
the story

13. Good readers...
• Have good phonics knowledge.
• Are able to instantly read high
frequency words.
• Question themselves while reading.
• Cross-check one source of
information with another.
• Monitor their own reading and self-
correct independently.

14. Our aim is for children to ...
• use all 3 sources of information-meaning, structure,
visual/phonics independently
• monitor their own reading and self-correct
independently
• read with fluency, phrasing and expression
• read with confidence and enjoyment
• engage with the story
• comprehend what they read ....
• READ FOR MEANING