Finding time to read together just for fun (over and above homework!), isn’t easy. But research shows us that reading together, little and often, can have a big impact. There are several things we can do to support reading at home, like trying to share books at different times of the day, telling stories together and using technology. All of these things will have just as good an impact on your children’s vocabulary, imagination and reading skills, as dare we say, homework!
In Week 5 of Families Connect we chatted about fun ways of sharing stories. One idea was to try to fit in sharing a book at different times of the day. Reading at bedtime is probably the norm and can help establish a bedtime routine. But by this time, parents are normally flagging and either falling asleep or negotiating down the number of books! Alternative suggestions were to read during bath-time and maybe even pick a fish or pirate themed book. Or to read together during mealtimes, with the added bonus of helping to keep the children at the table. For one family, trying books during dinner went down a treat and gave them a welcome break from the long-running game of eye-spy!
Telling stories when you are on the move, is another great idea to broaden literacy skills and really stirs up children’s imagination. Our Families Connect families thought that making up stories together helped to keep their children interested when out on a (boring!) walk, or on a long bus journey. But making up stories can be quite daunting for us adults. So, we looked at things we could use to help our story-telling, like cutting out pictures from a magazine or using old photos to use as prompts when at home, or using what we see around us like road signs, animals, people etc when we are out and about. We also got the chance to use the photo cards pictured below to have a practice, as well as looking at the CBeebies Storytime app as an example of how we can use technology to widen our reading experiences. Parents can have mixed views about using technology but as long as we are joining in with our children, apps and audio books etc can just be different ways of sharing stories.
So, if you are one of those parents falling asleep during bedtime stories, why not try sharing the ‘extra’ stories promised at a different time of day or making up a story together when you are going about your everyday activities. This will be great for your little one’s reading skills, can make things more fun for you too and can even help manage situations where tricky behaviour might be expected – like mealtimes, bath times and plain old boring times!
