Hello,
I am conscious many of the children will now have read their two school reading books. Therefore, I have uploaded the 'Oxford Owl' website, which is free to join, and it has lots of ebooks that can be accessed to continue reading with the children at home. Also, please explore 'Oxford Owl' as it has some really good resources.
If you have a look at the back of your children's school books or in their reading diaries, it will tell you which colour band they are on. Most of the children are on pink or red. However, if you feel they are confidently and independently applying the following knowledge, understanding and skills below, then feel free to move them to the next colour and please could you let me know.
When the children are reading, it is important that they are applying their phonic knowledge and skills through the following:
- Pronouncing pure sounds (see link below)
- Identifying the sounds including digraphs (two letters that make one sound - ch, th, sh, etc) and trigraphs (three letters that make one sound - air, ear, ure, etc).
- Sounding out and blending to read the word (eg, ch...air - chair or c.. a... t - cat)
- Identifying tricky words (can't sound them out).
Additionally, asking the children questions about what they have read and using the text to answer the questions will develop the children's comprehension skills.
Examples of questions to ask:
Before reading the book:
- Can you point to the title? or What is this? (pointing to the title)
- What do you think this story will be about?
- What might happen in the story?
- Who is in the story?
During the reading of the book:
- What is happening here?
- What is ______ doing?
- What might happen next?
- How do you think the story might end?
- Is __________ friendly/ mean/ nice…? Why?
- What does ______ mean? (To check understanding of a word)
- How do you think ______ feels?
At the end of the book:
- Did you like this book? Why?
- What was your favourite part? Why?
- Which character did you like the best? Why?
- Why did that character do … (give a situation/ event from the story)?
- What happened in the story?
I hope this helps and thank you for your support with reading.