When children start school, it's important that you continue to encourage and support their learning as much as you are able. This could often be using school books, with which children may already have made a start – they may even be able to read some books to you.
Try to read together every day, as a fun and bonding part of your routine.
Encourage sounding out and blending, if children find any individual words difficult to read. Then ensure the meaning of the word has also been understood.
Read as a team, whether books are fun or difficult. Encourage children to join in with books you’re reading together, especially with rhymes and repeated phrases. If they find their own reading difficult or tiring, you could try taking turns to read a page each.
Begin to look at punctuation, and how if can affect both the way things are read aloud and their meanings.
Re-read favourite books, as this helps to embed learned vocabulary, assists with confidence and fosters that all-important love of reading. Easier texts can help with this, too.
Make connections with real life by reminding children of similar situations or people they have encountered.
Discuss big ideas and small details, asking children both to talk about the whole story and to tell you about specific points. Start encouraging children to make links between points, too.
Communicate with your child's class teachers, perhaps using children’s reading logs, about anything that stands out: unexpected difficulties or particular interests.
Remember, children will benefit from support with both phonics and understanding. The activities suggested above for building word reading and comprehension skills can be adapted and extended to fit with children’s new reading material and developing abilities.
The quizzes can be accessed within the books by clicking the below image within the books - the number of Bug Club quizzes depends on the difficulty of the book (determined by the Book Band Level).
Getting the most out of Bug Club
Welcome to Bug Club! Bug Club is a powerful whole-school reading programme that is proven to raise attainment in reading and spelling and is loved by over a million children world-wide.
Children will have their own login details to Bug Club and will have the opportunity to use Bug Club either in school or at home or both depending on the preference of your child’s school. Class teachers are able to select a range of books appropriate for your child to read at home. These books will appear in children’s ‘My Stuff’ area on their personal homepages.
Throughout the books there are comprehension quiz questions which children should complete. To answer a question, click on the Bug icon.
When children have finished all of the quiz questions in a book, they will earn coins which they can then spend on ‘rewards’ in one of the reward areas accessed via their homepage.
All completed books move to the ‘My Library’ area of children’s homepages. Children can read these books again if they want to, or they can choose new books from their ‘My Stuff’ area.
How children learn to read
All children are different, especially when it comes to growing and learning. Children will learn different things in different ways and at different rates. Learning to read is no exception. There are lots of things that you, as a parent or carer, can do to help the process, as talking and listening are the starting points for learning to read.
Most children are competent speakers by the age of three. Young children learn to make connections between spoken words and objects, and eventually between spoken words and written words. Talk to children when you are doing things in the house or when you are out and about. Play with them, read to them and sing lots of songs. All of this helps to develop children’s early literacy skills.
Two key skills work hand-in-hand when children are learning to read: word reading and comprehension.
The skill of word reading is begun by the practice of phonics. This is the understanding that the different sounds in language (called ‘phonemes’) are represented by letters or combinations of letters (called ‘graphemes’). Children are taught the sounds first, and then how to match them to letters. They are finally taught how to use the letter sounds for reading and spelling.
For example, the word ‘crab’ can be broken down into four phonemes, each represented by a single letter: c-r-a-b. The word ‘night’ can be broken down into three phonemes, one of which is represented by three letters: n-igh-t.
The ability to sound out and blend together different parts of a word helps children to decode new and unfamiliar words as they read, such as ‘black’ which can be broken down into the ‘bl’ blend, ‘a’ and ‘ck’: bl-a-ck.
The 44 sounds are usually taught in this order:
- s a t p
- i n m d
- g o c k/ck
- e u r h b f l
- j v w x z qu
- ch sh th ng
- ai ee igh/ie oa oo (short) oo (long)
- ar or ur/er ow/ou oi
- air ear ure
It is important for children to practise saying the sounds rather than the names of the letters.
You can help build your children’s phonics skills by:
- sounding out words.
- playing ‘I Spy’ using the letter sounds rather than the letter names. This draws attention to words’ initial letters.
- reading poems and songs with repeated word endings (rhymes).
- looking at the high-frequency words and sounds in each Bug Club book, all listed on the inside front cover, and trying out the word games suggested there.
- encouraging children to use the ‘Read to me’ function of the Foundation and KS1 Bug Club online books.
Comprehension
Comprehension is the skill of understanding.
This may sound simple, but it doesn’t happen automatically. Many young readers concentrate so hard on working out what words they are reading that they don’t stop to think about what the words are telling them.
For this reason, comprehension needs to be developed actively. Children should be encouraged to think and talk about the meanings of words and stories, their personal opinions and how books relate to their own experiences.
You can help build your children’s comprehension skills by:
- asking questions about what has been read
- discussing how books’ pictures relate to the text
- talking about how characters might feel
- asking the questions and completing the activities featured on the inside back cover of each Bug Club book
- encouraging children to complete the ‘Bug Head’ comprehension quizzes in the Bug Club online books.
The quizzes can be accessed within the books by clicking the below image within the books - the number of Bug Club quizzes depends on the difficulty of the book (determined by the Book Band Level).
Reading at home
Research shows that children whose families read together at home are much more likely to become successful, confident independent readers.
We’ve put together some top tips to help you support your children at different stages – but here are two general tips to get you started.
Be a model reader: Help your children to see reading as a fun and natural part of life by seeing you reading and discussing books, newspapers, magazines and other texts on a regular basis. Having lots of reading material around the house helps with this.
Provide lots of choice: As well as integrating books into daily life, having lots of different texts around the house helps children to choose their own reading material and to develop their individual interests. Joining local libraries or taking children into bookshops to make their own selections is also important.
Why does my child's book have no words?
This is normal at the start of a child's reading journey and relates to the lilac book band. These books are more about observations and discussions about what is happening within the pictures of the story. If your child has a lilac book try the following:
Look at what is happening on each page in order, discussing left-hand pages before right-hand pages. Talk about what is happening, rather than just what is in each picture.
Ask for interpretations of the whole book after reading, encouraging children to tell you who or what the book is about.
What if my child is struggling to read?
Some children really struggle with learning to read. However, most just need a little more help and encouragement. Here are some of the things you can do to help reluctant readers.
Communicate with teachers to compare notes on precisely how children are having trouble, and how their needs could be best supported.
Talk about a book together before you read it, looking at the cover, the title and the information on the back. Flick through the pages, look at some of the pictures and talk about what might be going on. If children understand what a book is about, they will be better able to place the words encountered in context.
Put new or difficult terms into context so children can try to work them out in a meaningful way. Don’t let the struggle continue for too long, though – this will cause frustration and disengagement.
Don’t always correct mistakes immediately, but give children the chance to recognise and correct their own mistakes.
Don’t force it – if children are disinterested or reluctant to read, or become upset, don’t force the issue. It’s much better to stop and try again when they are happy and relaxed.
Make it fun by choosing books that will really interest and entertain children. Encourage them to see how enjoyable reading can be.
What do I do if I think my child needs to be challenged?
Some children quickly learn to decode words, build up a wide vocabulary and simply love books!
In the first instance talk to your child's class teacher as they will be able to give advice on progression steps.
They may suggest some of the following:
Provide access to a wider range of fiction books to broaden children’s reading experiences. Ask your librarian or a bookshop assistant for advice and the latest recommendations.
Don’t forget about non-fiction – these books often present a greater reading challenge, and it’s important to encourage a wide experience of genres and styles. Suggest books or magazines on subjects that fascinate your children.
Suggest creative activities based on children’s interests. A love of reading can be developed further by encouraging children to consider adapting stories into plays, performing poetry or giving presentations about non-fiction subjects. This might then become a love of writing stories or poems from scratch.