Supporting Reading at Home P1-3
It is helpful if you can do the following types of activities (different activities each night):
- Read the book to the child
- Read the book with the child
- Hear the child read the book
- Discuss the author and title
- Stop occasionally and discuss what is happening in the pictures
- Stop occasionally and predict what might happen next
- Relate the story to their own personal experiences
- Discuss the story generally
– How did the story make them feel? Why?
– What was their favourite part? Why?
– Did they like the ending?
– Can they think of an alternative ending?
- Can they re-tell the story in their own words?
- How is the character feeling and why?
Talk about part of the story, e.g.
- Sequence events in the story (what happened first, next, after that)
- Reasons for events – Why do you think this happened?
- Characters’ behaviour, feelings and relationships and relate these to their own experiences
- Find tricky words – what do they mean?
- Find favourite words/phrases
- Find a word that rhymes with….
- How many sentences are on page 6? How do you know?
- Why has “Floppy” got a capital letter?
- Find the biggest/smallest word
- Find a word that means the same as/ opposite of..
- Which word tells us how …… is feeling?
- How do you know that ……. is speaking?
- Why is there a ! on page 6? What is it called?
- Draw a question mark in the air and find one on page ….
- How could you join the two sentences on page ….
( If the pupil answers YES or NO then the question is too “skinny” – try to avoid Yes/No questions )
Supporting Reading at Home P4-7
You can continue to support you child’s reading development at home by encouraging them to read widely and talking to them about the text.
For example
Fiction Texts
- What is the atmosphere of this chapter? What makes you think that?
- What was the main event in this chapter?
- What do you think about the action/main event? Why?
- How did the main character feel about that? How do you know?
- Was the character justified in his actions?
- What effect did his actions have on the other characters? What words give you that impression?
- Can you explain why you think the main event happened?
- What do you think might happen next? What makes you think that?
- Is there anything that puzzles you?
- Where do you think the author has been the most effective? Why?
- Think of an alternative beginning or ending for the text
- Design a new cover and title for the book
- Predict what will happen next in the book
- Grammar hunt – read and find a given number of nouns or verbs, adverbs, pronouns etc
- Find the longest/trickiest word from each page in the chapter and teach each other how to spell them
- Find 10 adjectives/adverbs and give alternatives
- Look in text for alternatives to “said”
- Summarise the chapter by identifying the key points
- Look for the techniques the author has used to make the reader feel a certain way about a character
( If the pupil answers YES or NO then the question is too “skinny” – try to avoid Yes/No questions)
Non-Fiction
- Discuss cover, type of genre and what information they may expect to be in the book
- Discuss what they already know about this topic
- What do you want to find out from the book?
- What will help you find the information – contents, index, headings, sub-headings
- What have you found out? What can you teach me?
- What was the most interesting/funniest/useful fact?
- Tell me what you learned in you own words?
Useful Websites
http://www.lovereading4kids.co.uk/
http://www.myonlinereading.com/
