How Will My Child Learn To Read At School?

Learning to read in school.

As an experienced Primary school teacher, one of the most frequent questions I get asked at the beginning of the school year is ‘how will my child learn to read at school?’ The teaching of reading and spelling has drastically changed over the past 30 years, so no wonder why so many parents are asking this common question! But don’t worry, I’ve got you covered- in this blog, I will dive deep into this topic and highlight the ways your child will be taught to read once they start Reception (KG1).

Learning to read is one of the most important skills your child will learn in his or her life. That’s because we live in a society in which literacy skills are the key to success. Teaching your child to read begins at birth with the reinforcement of pre- literacy skills. Nonetheless, most children will officially learn to read between the ages of 5 and 7.

How will my child learn to read at school?

Once your child starts school, they will be learning to read through phonics. Phonics is a method of teaching reading and writing to children in which they learn the letter or group of letters that correspond to a sound. A sound can be represented by a single letter – for example, each of the three sounds in ‘hat’, h-a-t). Sometimes a sound is represented by more than one letter such as sh in sh-o-p, ay in p-l-ay, and igh in l-igh-t. At first, your child will learn a set of sounds and the letters that represent them. (Learning the letter names, like ‘double-u’ for ‘w’, will come later.) Then they will be taught to blend those sounds together to read words. As your child becomes a strong reader, they’ll do less and less reading out loud and recognise more and more vocabulary by sight. This makes them faster. They can also do more when it comes to interacting with the books they read, including following more complicated narratives, understanding specific details, gist and making inferences and predictions.

Reading at school and home.

Depending on the Phonics programme your child’s school follow will depend on the type of books they bring home to read. More often than not, the books your child is given to read should contain words made up of the sounds that they know. This means the books are ‘decodable’ by your child because they have learnt the ‘code’ – the letters and sounds that make up the words in their reading book. If your child comes home with the same book more than once, there is a good reason for this! Children benefit from reading a familiar book to build fluency and understanding. Your child’s first reading might be quite stilted as they focus on sounding out and blending the words, but after lots of practice they will become more fluent. When they can read a book more fluently, it is easier for them to focus on the meaning of the text and they might notice things they had missed on an earlier reading.

How can you support reading at home?

Encourage your child to say the letter sounds in a short and clear way, without an ‘uh’ at the end of consonant sounds (for example, ‘p’, rather than ‘puh’). This takes some practice but it will help them when they start blending the sounds together to make words. For example, it’s easier to blend the sounds c-a-t together to make ‘cat’, than the sounds cuh-a-tuh. Once your child can blend sounds together, they’ll be able to read books written with words made up of the sounds they’ve learnt.

1. Don’t read the book to your child before they read it to you – they may just remember the words and not get any real practice.

2. If your child can read the story well, that doesn’t mean the book is too easy. It’s important they get plenty of practice reading words containing the letters and sounds they have learnt. Celebrate their achievement with them – reading success is important in building their confidence and enjoyment!

3. If your child struggles with a word, ask them to ‘sound out’ the word by saying the individual sounds in the word and then blending the sounds together (for example, ‘c-a-t – cat’).

4. Don’t let your child struggle too much – if they are really stuck with a word, sound it out for them quickly so that they can hear the word. Plenty of praise when they succeed will help them to keep going.

5. Don’t ask your child to use the pictures to guess the words. Pictures can provide great opportunities to talk about what is happening in a story, but it’s important that your child doesn’t become dependent on them to read.

6. Read back each sentence or page to your child to ensure they have understood.

7. When your child has read the book, talk about it together. As well as your child reading to you, it’s important that you read stories, rhymes, and non-fiction books to your child. This will increase their vocabulary, develop their comprehension, and encourage the habit of reading – which is a great habit to have!

Rochelle x