Welcome Gomersal Primary School

Here are some ways you can help your child at home:

Be a reading role model - Let your child see you reading at home and share your excitement an enjoyment with them. It could be anything a book, magazine, newspaper - just show them you are having fun.

Read aloud and enjoy a book together- reading at home should also involve you reading to your child. Make choosing a book together fun; you could visit the school library (Thursday evening), the public library or choose a book that is already at home. This is a good opportunity to allow your children to read books that they can’t read themselves yet. A love of reading can be created by letting a child choose a book they desperately want to read, even if it is too hard for them.

Talk, talk, talk - Talk before you start, talk during and talk after you have finished reading a book. Ask questions about the setting and characters, make predictions or talk about your favourite part, the list is endless.

Praise, praise, praise – Like with talking, praise before, during and after reading to instil confidence in your child. Writing about what you have read in your child’s home-school log book, even if it isn't a school book, will allow your child’s teacher to talk to and praise your child for reading at home too.

Use phonic strategies - Ask your child to sound out an unknown word. Look at the letters or sounds in a difficult word and support your child in sounding out them word. Then see if they can blend the sounds together to read  the word. Make sure you encourage your child to re-read the section they struggled with to develop fluency.

Learn common exception words – Help your child learn how to recognise the common exception, or tricky words that don’t follow a regular pattern.  Once they recognise these words they won’t waste their time trying to sound out words that don’t follow a regular pattern.

Allow self-correction - If your child mispronounces a word do not interrupt them immediately. Allow the child to read the rest of the sentence and see if they recognise the sentence doesn’t make sense, then support them in re-reading.

Use the picture – use the pictures to look for clues and discuss what the word or phrase could be.

Skip unknown words – if your child is really struggling with a word, instead of telling them, ask them to read to the end of the story. Can they work out the word in context?

Use punctuation – does the sentence have speech marks or an exclamation mark? Read with expression or maybe try using a different voice. You can be as silly as you like.