Tips for Reading at home

Sharing books with your child can be one of the most special and rewarding times. As well as being a fun and magical experience, sharing books together can be the start of a life-long love of reading. This is so important as it is widely recognised that children who read for pleasure improve their life chances, not just in education, but in their mental wellbeing and social relationships. Through reading, children can explore, learn, imagine, develop a sense of their own identity and an empathy and awareness of others.

Reading with, and engaging your children with the books that you are sharing, is vitally important. It’s this talking together and questioning about the books that really gets the children thinking about what is happening in both the written and visual texts, and can spark their interest and imagination. Below are links to some fabulous sites that are full of great suggestions about how to do this. As well as including videos and multilingual leaflets with tips on how to read with your children, some of these sites are also regularly updated to include newly published book recommendations

In school we use VIPERS as a basis for asking questions about what we read. At home, you could also enjoy reading with TRUST:

T - Take turns to make predictions

R - Recap to check ideas and understanding

U - Use encouragement and praise

S - Share prior knowledge and past experiences

T - Tune-in and listen.

Be curious with your child. Above all, have fun discovering new books and supporting your child on their reading journey!

For more advice and useful resources to support reading at home with your children please see document below.