At The Whitchurch Church of England Federation, we love to read and want to inspire our pupils to love reading too!

Reading is forever

The world revolves around reading. Want to know where you are? You read a sign. Get a text message or email - you read it. Receive a birthday / Christmas card - you read it. Want to know what's on the telly? You read the planner. Need to escape the madness of the real world - you read a good book. Reading is everywhere and without it you can feel lost. We want our children to be able to navigate the world in which we live and expand their horizons through books.

How can you help?

Read with your children as often as possible!

Enjoy the books they choose - silly characters, fun illustrations, wacky plots - encourage your children to talk about books even after they have been put down. If you can, encourage your children to read at least 20 minutes every day. Busy families can find extra time to read when in the car on the way to and from clubs, while having breakfast, 10 minutes before 'lights out' or by playing audio books on longer journeys.

Book corners

Set up a cosy corner where they can relax and lose themselves in a book - get some cushions, a throw, a lamp and some teddies to snuggle with! Have a book shelf or book box filled with their favourite books.

Visit the library

Mix up your book shelves by visiting the local library (it's free!) - choose books for your children, but also let them choose books for themselves. Discuss why they might want to read these books - the cover might be appealing, the blurb on the back might be enticing or it might be that someone else has read it and suggested it! Flick through some pages while you are there, get a feel for it. Read the first sentence aloud to see if it hooks your children in; show some of the illustrations to get them keen to dive in!

E-Books

If you can't get to a library or a book shop, why not try an E-Book? There are lots of great sites that you can access to read online or download books for your young readers!

Oxford Owl - https://home.oxfordowl.co.uk/ - This site has lots of free E-Books that only require you to register to access. There is also a wealth of other free material across the curriculum and information for parents.

The Oak Academy school library - Each a week there is a different author for children to learn about and one of their books to read for free!

https://freekidsbooks.org/ - This site has PDF versions of books that can be downloaded for free.

Amazon Kindle app has access to free books and books that can be purchased for less than the cost of a hard copy - just go to the app store on your chosen device to find the Kindle app. (consider parental locks so children do not accidentally purchase books!)

Harper Collins - this site has tips on where to find free audio books for different devices!

Top tips when listening to reading

Ask your child to read a couple of pages aloud to you, encouraging them to use expression. Listen carefully as they read, helping where necessary. Are they reading in an expressive way or is their reading rather flat and mechanical? Are they using punctuation to help them to read e.g. pausing at commas and full stops, lifting their voice for a question mark? Are they using expression to make the meaning clear? How are they reading when characters speak? Suggest that you take it in turns to each read a page. When it’s your turn, think about the points above so that you can model how to read aloud so that it’s interesting for the listener.

Book talk

Talk to your children about their reading regularly.

You can build your child’s comprehension – their ability to understand what they are reading – by talking to them. In a story you can talk about events, about the characters and about where and when the story is set. Think about this as having a chat about the book, one reader to another, rather than an interrogation.

Ask questions that encourage your child to predict what they think might happen and to reflect on what has happened already. Keep these questions open – in other words, ask questions that don’t require a yes/no answer. For example, if you ask ‘How did you feel when …?’ you are more likely to get a fuller, more reflective answer than asking ‘Did you like it when …?’.

Ask about their favourite characters and how the characters change in the story. Ask how they think they would have felt or reacted if they were that character in that situation. Encourage them to give reasons for their answers.

You can invite them to ‘jump into’ the book: to put themselves into a situation and explore what they can see, what they can hear, what they can smell and how they might feel.

Prompts to help with your book chat:

Tell me what you liked about the book

Tell me about something you didn’t like

Tell me about something that puzzled you or that you didn’t understand

Tell me about something that this book made you think about or reminded you of

There are no right or wrong answers to these prompts so you can then respond to your child’s thoughts with your own ideas.

Reading games

Making reading fun!

Fastest finger first - Challenge your child to find a word in the text as fast as they can! It could be a tricky or new word; it could be a common word such as 'because'.

Act it out - Pretend to be different characters from the book and act out what has happened. You could improvise and act out what you think will happen next!

Guess who? - Say or do things that one of the characters in the book says or does. Can your children guess which character you are? Get your children to do it, can you guess who they are being? Could be expanded to famous book characters.

Eye spy - Use illustrations from the book to play this classic game!

Picture detective - Look at an illustration from the book and talk about: what you can see, what questions you have eg Why is he on his own? How did he get there?, what you think is happening in the picture, what you think might happen next.

Extreme reader - Take photos of the family reading in fun places, such as on holiday, at the top of a mountain, on the play equipment. Look at Mr Wood's attempt...

Enjoy your reading journey!