Home Reading at Roxburgh Park Primary School

Home reading is a fantastic way of developing a student’s love of reading. It should be an enjoyable activity where students practice fluency, build confidence, learn about the world around them and develop their imagination.

Throughout their schooling students are expected to read at home every night of the week. It is important to start this routine straight away at the beginning of Prep to allow students to continue it individually as they become more independent readers.

Our aim is to send books home that are at an independent level for your child. This means that they have an opportunity to read a text, which is at a level easier than the book they are using at school to discover more about reading. Students are encouraged to read and reread easier texts to improve their fluency and comprehension during home reading routines.

How to help your child read successfully

• Set aside a regular time for reading.
• Make sure the atmosphere is relaxed and happy.
• Make sure there are no distractions – e.g. T.V.
• Give lots and lots of praise.
• Don’t worry about progress as your child is making gains everyday.
• Be relaxed and comfortable, the aim is to help your child to ENJOY reading.
• Talk about the book before reading, look at the title, cover, illustrations and author.
• Try to guess what the book might be about.
• Praise your child for their efforts and don’t focus on mistakes. Be patient, trust that your child will learn to read.
• Let children read their favourite books over and over again.
• Read to your child to model good reading behaviours and your own love of reading.

Reading Strategies

• Have your child use the pictures for clues.
• Have your child attempt the word.
• Have your child re-read the sentence.
• Tell your child to get their mouth ready for the word. The child then re-reads the sentence saying the first 1 or 2 sounds of the tricky word out loud.
• Point with your finger to the tricky parts.
• Have your child answer these questions:

-Does your word make sense?

-Does your word sound right?

 -Does it look right?

If you have tried some of the strategies and they still cannot work out the word, tell them.

• Ask your child a range of questions after they have read to you to help them build comprehension. Eg.
• What do you think will happen next?
• Do the characters remind you of other characters from another story?
• Does this remind you of something that has happened to you or another text?
• How do you think the character feels?
• How did this text make you feel? Why is that?
• What are the main ideas/message and important parts in the text?