1. Reading with your child at home Workshop 16 th October 2013

2. We aim to help children to become independent readers, who choose and want to read for their own purposes and enjoyment. For this children need to develop the skills of decoding and comprehension. Children need plenty of attention, support and practise with reading. Both at home, and at school, there should be opportunities for:  Reading to Children  Reading With Children  Children Reading Aloud  Children Reading Independently All types of reading are relevant to all children

3. Does my child enjoy reading?  Think about the question.  Why isn’t my child interested in reading?  If my child is interested, then why are they interested?  Do I force my child to read their books every night?  Is my child enjoying the books they are reading?  Are the books my child is reading hard or easy?  Do I actively promote reading at home?  What books do I have at home for my child to read?

4. Should my child’s home reading books be hard or easy to read?  They should be reasonably EASY.  Children will only choose to read material that they can actually read and understand.  Look at the books you chose to read. Would you want to read something that was uninteresting/ too hard/ too thick/ boring/ irrelevant?  Children are no different. They will want to read books that they are interested in and don’t find too hard.

5. How will reading easy books at home benefit my child’s reading?  They can read them ON THEIR OWN with no help. This builds their confidence and makes them feel like a ‘good reader’ which is very important.  They enjoy it when they read easy books.  They are exposed to a lot more words through the week as they are reading more books.  Fluency and phrasing – if they are not fluent in their reading (smooth and don’t sound like robots) then they will struggle with higher level books and take A LOT longer to read. Practising easy books helps them to read fluently with expression.  DON’T UNDERESTIMATE WHAT AN IMPACT EASY BOOKS CAN MAKE ON YOUR CHILD’S DEVELOPMENT IN READING.

6. How does my child learn to read?  Have a go at cracking the code, you have 5 minutes!!  What did you use to crack the code?  Why did I ask you to do this activity?

7.  When children learn to read they use 3 sources of information and ALL are very important. - meaning of the story, what’s happening (use of pictures) - visual information (what sounds are in the word, what are the shapes of the letters/ words, does that word look right?) - Structural information (did that make sense? Go back and check/ re-read, change it to something that makes sense, have a guess.)  Very competent readers use all 3. They will use the picture, look at the word and sound out and re-read to check it makes sense.  What sources of information did you use to crack the code?  There are lots of things for children to do, especially at early stages of learning to read.  Children learn how to use all 3 sources of information in their guided reading lessons.

8. Reading in School  Individual reading  Guided reading in groups  Phonics group sessions  Quiet reading time  Library time  Story time  Classroom environment, project work and continuous provision

9. Reading at Home  Your child brings home colour coded books from our reading scheme, matched to their reading ability. They have a reading record book, in which you can keep a record of what they have read and make comments.  The aim of today’s workshop is to give you guidance on how you can help them your child with this, as well as other ways you can support their reading at home

10. Reading to your child  In the early stages of reading, children learn to “behave like a reader” by copying what they see and learning how a book works. Sharing and repeating favourite stories together encourages children to join in.  As children become increasingly independent readers, it is vital that reading to your child continues. You can model correct pronunciation, good expression and reading at the right pace. These skills will be acquired through imitation

11. Reading Together  In the early stages of reading, read the books with your child moving your finger along the line and pointing to the words so that they may follow the line of print. Discuss the pictures in the book and concentrate on the story line. Some early books have no words so you and your child can construct a story using the pictures as a guide. Encourage them to predict what might happen on the next page.  As children become increasingly independent readers, it is still important that this discussion and prediction continues, to ensure children are understanding what they are reading

12. Listening to your child read  Remember that reading little and often is best, 5 minutes 5 times a week is a sensible basis.  Reading should only continue for longer than 10 minutes if the child insists.

13. Listening to your child read  If your child has chosen a book which they subsequently find is not to their liking then there is no reason why they have to finish it. An alternative choice of reading material can be made. Enjoyment of the book is the most important thing, so do read books from home or your own library books. These can also be recorded in your child’s reading diary

14. Listening to your child read  Never let your child stumble over a word for more than a few seconds. If they do not know a word try to work it out together using their phonic knowledge and other clues

15. Listening to your child read Allow your child to guess at words and to use all the clues available:  The illustrations.  Their phonic knowledge.  Reading ahead and then making a reasonable guess at the missing word so that the sentence makes sense.

16. High Frequency Words Research shows that learning just 13 of the most frequently used words will enable children to read 25% of any text. Learning 100 high frequency words gives a beginner reader access to 50% of virtually any text, whether a children's book or a newspaper report. When you couple sight recognition of common and tricky words with knowledge of phonics, that's when a child's reading can really take off…

17. Tricky words  Tricky words are High frequency words that cannot be decoded using phonics Eg. I, the, me, my, so etc.  Children just need to learn to read and write these words as they cant use their phonics strategies to work them out. Unfortunately, the English language is full of these tricky words.

18. Concepts about print. Activity – look at the text on your table (1 between 2.) Listen to these questions.

19.  1. Front and back of book  2. Print tells the story concept “Show me where I would start reading.”  3. Directional rules “I want to point to the words as I read. Show me how my finger should move on the page as I read. Where do I go after that?”  4. Voice print pairing “Now you point to the words as I read them.”  5. First and Last “Show me the first part of the story and the last part of the story.”  6. Top/Bottom picture “Show me the top of the picture.” “Show me the bottom.”  7. Punctuation Point to a full stop, comma, capital letter. “What is this for? Do you know what is called?”

20.  8. Capital and lower-case letters Using the text of a book say, “Show me a capital letter. Show me a lower-case letter.”  9. Letter concepts “Show me just one letter. Do you know the name of that letter? Show me another letter. What sound does that letter make?”  10. Word Concepts “Show me just one word. Show me two words.

21. What is phonics?  Phonics is the relationship between letters and sounds in words.  Learning phonics will help your child to read and spell.  A phoneme is the sounds of the elements in words.Eg.Ship is sh –i–p.  Your child progresses through the phases when learning phonics.

22. What happens in each phase?  Phase 1 is tuning into different sounds (environmental sounds, body sounds, animal sounds, rhymes and rhythm etc.) Children will learn to distinguish between 2 sounds.  Phase 2 is moving on to simple sounds in words (c, b, d etc) and is moving onto putting sounds together and pulling words apart (cat = c-a-t, c-a-t= cat)  Phase 3 is learning more complex phonemes such as sh, th, ng, oi.  Phase 4 is learning compound words and revision of phase 3 (postbox)  Phase 5 is learning different spellings for different phonemes ( ai, ay, a-e, aigh) see best bet resource on website for list of these words.  Phase 6 is learning specific spelling strategies ( i before e etc.)

23. Vocabulary – the children are taught the correct vocabulary from Reception.  Digraph – 2 phonemes that make one sound (sh, th, ch, ck)  Split digraph – a-e name, e-e these, i-e fine, o-e bone, u-e tune  Trigraph – 3 phonemes that make one sound (igh, tch )

24. Blending for reading  The children are taught to bend when working out an unknown word eg. Ship – to blend you would say each phoneme and blend them together sh-i-p. You would do this slowly at first and then speed up the blending process.

25. Segmenting  Children are taught to segment words for spelling. E.g. They say a word they want to spell such as duck, they say each phoneme in turn and write them down as they hear them.  Segmenting depends on the child hearing the sounds separately. Can do this by capping each phoneme, robot talk etc.

26. What are the basic phonemes?  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B qhXUW_v-1s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B qhXUW_v-1s

27. How can I help at home?  There are a lot of websites available which are listed on our website.  There are lots of phonics APPs available.  When your child struggles on a word ask them questions to prompt them to use phonics skills e.g. What can you hear first? What’s the last sound? What’s the phoneme in the middle? Does it look like any other word you know?  If you know the word is too difficult then do not be afraid to tell them what it is.

28. Listening to your child read  If your child makes a mistake allow them to continue for a little way and correct themselves. Children need to learn the skill of going back and self correcting.  If the mistake does not alter the meaning of the text then there is no need to correct. The flow of the story is important

29. Independent Reading and Developing Comprehension  As children become able to read independently, they make a transition from learning to read to reading to learn. They will engage with a wide range of texts for a purpose and for pleasure.  This life skill should always go hand in hand with reading comprehension, if it is to be of any value. Therefore, when children read independently it is essential to discuss what they have read and ask them questions about it in order to ensure they understand what they are reading

30. Developing Comprehension  Independent reading should only be done alongside reading together and listening to your child read, even when they are confident and able to read alone.  Comprehension should underpin all types of reading in order to help develop this skill in independent readers

31. Helping your child to read  Always make reading fun! Praise your child as much as possible and never allow anxiety or a feeling of failure to develop Remember …  Children learn at different rates.  It is stages of development not ages!  Children need time to make their own journey through the process of development

32. Questioning Think of 5 questions you may ask a child about the story you have just heard.

33. Different sorts of questions

34. Knowledge  Sample Question Stems: What happened after...? How many...? Who was it that........? Can you name........? Describe what happened when........? Who spoke to........? Can you tell why........? Find the meaning of........? What is........? Where does........? Which is true or false...?

35. Comprehension  Sample Question Stems: Can you write in your own words...? Can you write a brief outline...? What do you think could have happened after...? Who do you think...? What was his/her idea when...? Who was the character that...? What differences are there between...? Can you provide an example of what is meant by......? Can you provide a definition for......?

36. Application  Sample Question Stems: Do you know another example where.......? Could this happen in...? What things would you change if......? What question would you ask......? Can you develop a set of instructions or questions about/for...? Would this information be useful if you...?

37. Analysis  Sample Question Stems:  Which events could have happened.........? If....... did/didn’t happen, how might the story have changed? How was this similar to...........? Why did........ change........... ? Explain what happened when..........? How is......... similar to.........? What was the motive behind...........? What was the turning point when............? What was the problem when...........?

38. Synthesis  Sample Question Stems: Design a......... to..........? Create or compose a........ about.........? What is the possible solution to...? If you had access to any resources how would you deal with...? What would happen if...? How many ways can you...? Create a new and unusual use for...? Write a new recipe for.........? Develop a plan or suggestion which would..........

39. Evaluation  Sample Question Stems: Is there a better solution to......... Can you give reasons for his/her decision to........? Do you think.......... is a good or a bad thing? How would you have handled.............? What changes to........ would you recommend? Do you believe.............? Which aspects of your personality are like...........? How would you feel if.............? How effective was...........? What do you think about..............?

40. Using the triangle put the questions in order of difficulty  Which parts of the story could not be true?  Why did Goldilocks like little bear’s bed best?  Was Goldilocks good or bad? Why?  What happened in the story?  Can you think of a different ending?  What would have happened if Goldilocks had come to your house?

41. KNOWLEDGE What happened in the story? COMPREHENSION Why did Goldilocks like the little bears bed best? APPLICATION What would have happened if Goldilocks had come to your house? ANALYSIS Which parts could not be true? SYNTHESIS Can you think of a different ending? EVALUATION Was Goldilocks good or bad and why?

42. On our website  High frequency words/ tricky words for each phase in phonics.  Jolly phonics actions cards  Reading at home leaflet  Helping your child at home leaflet.  Questions to help you get more from your child.  Concepts about print checklist  Websites  Letters and sounds handout  Best bet activity sheet.

43.  Please complete feedback form before you leave.  I hope the workshop has been useful.