We all know there is a lot more to reading than just reading!

Here are some tips to help with reading sessions at home.

• What is happening? Talk about what is happening in the picture before you read the text. What can you see?
• Discuss the meaning of new or unfamiliar words. Use a dictionary to help your child used to exploring a word for themselves.
• Discuss alternative words. For example, ‘big’ can they think of other words that mean the same? E.g. huge, enormous, colossal. Use a thesaurus to help discover new and more exciting vocabulary.
• Discuss predictions. What do you think will happen next? What makes you think that?
• Start at the end of the book. What do you think happened before this point? Why do you think that?
• Discuss feelings. How do you think the characters are feeling? What has made them feel this way?
• Where is the story set? Do you know any other stories with the same setting?
• Discuss the problem in the story. What happened? What went wrong?
• Discuss the resolution. How was it resolved? Could it have been resolved another way?
• Fact or fiction? Is the book fact or fiction? How do you know?
• What have you learnt? What do you know that you didn’t know before reading this book?

During reading:

• Encourage your child to use expression when reading, especially voices for characters.
• Discuss the punctuation on the page. For example, exclamation marks- what are these for? What should you do when you see an exclamation mark?
• You do not have to read the entire book every night. Focus on a couple of pages and talk about the setting, characters and plot in detail. You might want to take it in turns to read so your child can hear you read too.