Children's author Julia Donaldson has top tips to help your children get the best start in reading

Everyone wants their child to do well in reading. Apart from that nightly bedtime story, you may be wondering about what else you could be doing to make sure that your child gets off to a good start.

Enjoying reading together in all kinds of different situations is vital all through the primary years. But it’s also important to balance this with some focus on your child's developing reading skills. Make reading an enjoyable experience, and then your child will keep reading.

3– 7 YEAR OLDS

  • Talk together - Talking about words and pictures is really important for building up a store of vocabulary and confidence
  • Read together - Just 5-10 minutes at bedtime, bath time or quiet time really does help to hook them in.
  • Remember when - Compare events in stories or information books with things you’ve done together, so your child starts to make connections between these things and their own experiences.
  • Sing together - Nursery rhymes and songs for your youngest and chart-topping songs you hear on the radio for your 6-7 year old all count
  • New books but old favourites too – Build confidence by reading lots of different books at the same reading level, and continue to re-read earlier books so that you aren’t pushing up the difficulty of the read too quickly and causing frustration

7- 11 YEAR OLDS (Revisit the above, but also include the below)

  • Talk together – Talk about their reading interests and they may be interested in what you are reading too.
  • Read together –Get your older children to read with younger brothers and sisters too.
  • Revisiting favourites - It’s ok to have a favourite book, but also comparing and sharing memories of real life and books will help your child to develop empathy.
  • Sing together - Rhythm, rhyme, raps, advertising jingles or the latest top-rated downloadable track can all help the older reader to appreciate and use the patterns of language they hear in both their speech and writing.

For fun ideas to support reading and more information and tips go to http://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/Reading