How to Support Your Child at Home 
Top Tips for Reading with Your Child at Home
- Encourage children to use expression when reading, especially for the voices of different characters.
- Focus on a couple of pages at a time and talk about the plot and characters in a lot of detail.
- Take it in turns so your child can hear you read.
What is happening?
Talk about what is happening in the picture before you read the text.
Discuss the meaning of words.
Use a dictionary to get your child used to exploring words for themselves.
Discuss alternative words.
For example, 'big'. Ask your child to think of another word that means the same, use a thesaurus to help you.
Discuss punctuation on the page.
For example, exclamation marks, what are these for and how should this part of the text be read?
Make predictions.
What do you think will happen next and why?
Discuss feelings.
How do you think the characters are feeling and why?
Where is the story set?
Have your read another story with the same or similar setting?
Discuss the problem in the story.
What has happened? What went wrong?
Discuss the resolution.
How was the problem solved?
Fact or Fiction?
How do you know?
Julia Donaldson's top reading tips
How to help a struggling reader at home
