Parent Involvement in Reading

At Magill School, we firmly believe that a child's literacy journey is a team effort between educators and parents. Your active involvement in your child's reading journey plays a crucial role, acting as a key driver for their overall development. Here's why your role as a parent is so vital:

Building a Strong Foundation:

Reading with your child at home lays the foundation for their literacy skills. The more exposure children have to language and words, the stronger their foundation becomes. Whether it's bedtime stories, shared reading, or exploring books together, these experiences contribute significantly to vocabulary development and comprehension skills.

Developing Fluency and Confidence:

Regular reading sessions with parents contribute to the development of fluency – the ability to read quickly and smoothly. As children become familiar with words and sentence structures, their reading becomes more fluid, boosting their confidence. Confidence in reading is a key motivator that propels children to explore more challenging texts independently.

Expanding Vocabulary and Knowledge:

When you read with your child, you open doors to a world of new words and exciting ideas. The different kinds of books – from vibrant picture books to interesting facts in informational texts – help your child learn and explore, expanding their knowledge about the world around them. So, every story you share is like a treasure hunt for words and ideas, making learning an exciting adventure.

Strengthening Comprehension Skills:

Engaging in discussions about the stories you read together is an invaluable opportunity to strengthen comprehension skills. Asking questions, making predictions, and reflecting on the narrative enhance your child's ability to understand and interpret texts. These skills are not only crucial for academic success but also for a lifelong love of learning.

Cultivating a Lifelong Love for Reading:

Perhaps most importantly, the more children read, the more likely they are to develop a lifelong love for reading. This love extends beyond the classroom, fostering a curiosity and appreciation for literature that stays with them into adolescence and adulthood. A positive relationship with reading is a gift that keeps on giving throughout one's life.

Our Recommendation:

We encourage you to make reading a cherished part of your daily routine. Whether it's a few minutes before bedtime, during weekends, or in the midst of a quiet afternoon, these moments create lasting memories and contribute significantly to your child's literacy journey. Your involvement is not just an investment in their academic success but also in the joy and fulfilment that a lifelong love for reading brings.

Together, let's embark on this literary adventure and watch as your child's imagination, creativity, and literacy skills flourish with each turn of the page.

How can I help support my child at home?

If your child needs some help when they are reading you can:

Encourage them to use their finger under the word from left to right.
Ask them to 'say the sounds and read the word'.
Tell them to 'listen' for the words as they say the sounds.
If they need more help, tell them the sounds in the word and ask them to listen and blend them to say the whole word.

It is important to say the sounds very precisely. You can watch and listen to Alex saying the sounds in this short video (click here).

We encourage all of our parents/carers to access the free Sounds-Write online course so that they are well-informed about how best to support their children with reading and spelling at home.

How can I further advance my child’s reading comprehension?

Advanced Reading Comprehension

For high achieving readers who have mastered basic reading skills, it's essential to further develop their comprehension abilities. Here are some strategies to help advance your child's reading comprehension:

Encourage Critical Thinking: Prompt your child to think deeply about the text by asking open-ended questions such as:

- "Why do you think the character made that decision?"
- "What do you predict will happen next?"
- "How does this story relate to your own experiences or the world around you?"

Analyse Author's Craft: Encourage your child to analyse the author's writing style, tone, and use of language. Discuss how these elements contribute to the overall meaning of the text.
Summarisation and Synthesis: Encourage your child to summarise key points or events in the text and synthesize information from multiple sources to gain a deeper understanding of complex topics.
Explore Different Perspectives: Encourage your child to consider different viewpoints presented in the text and discuss how these perspectives shape the narrative and characters' motivations.
Expand Vocabulary and Contextual Understanding: Introduce your child to challenging vocabulary words encountered in their reading and encourage them to infer word meanings from context. For example – they made read… ‘Jill was ecstatic. She was jumping for joy and couldn’t keep the smile off her face’. If a child doesn’t know what ecstatic means, what clues in the context help them to make an inference of this meaning? (That she jumped for joy, couldn’t keep the smile off her face – therefore ecstatic must be a positive emotion meaning overjoyed or over excited).
This will not only enhance their comprehension but also enrich their language skills.
Encourage Diverse Reading: Provide access to a variety of texts across different genres, topics, and formats to broaden your child's reading experience and deepen their understanding of the world.
Encourage Discussion and Debate: Foster a culture of thoughtful discussion and debate around the texts your child reads. Encourage them to articulate their opinions, support their arguments with evidence from the text, and respectfully consider alternative viewpoints.

By implementing these strategies, you can help your high achieving reader not only comprehend texts at a deeper level but also develop critical thinking skills that will serve them well in academics and beyond.