Home Reading Kindy - Year 2

Home Reading at Mount Helena Primary School

Thanks to the support of the P&C we have a wonderful selection of home readers.

 

Starting your child on the road to reading is very exciting! Reading at home is vital for the development of children’s literacy skills and is especially important for the expansion of their vocabulary and for strengthening comprehension. By making reading part of your daily routine, you can help your child build a strong foundation for academic success and a lifelong love of reading.

 

THE BORROWING SYSTEM

Children will borrow on a Monday, read the same book on Monday and Tuesday night, renew their book on Wednesday, read the same book on Wednesday and Thursday and return on Friday. This new approach will provide your child with the opportunity to strengthen the rate, expression, and confidence with which they read.

 

DECODABLE BOOKS

Our home readers for K-2 students fall under the heading of Decodable readers. Decodable books require children to read words by sounding out and blending (no guessing!), using the letters and sounds that they have been taught. These books work alongside our structured synthetic phonics program, Letters and Sounds.

 

SUPPORTING YOUR CHILD

The ‘Pause, Prompt, Praise’ method is research-based and effective.

 

When your child is a beginning reader and has difficulty reading a word, the following has been shown to be the best way to help them:

 

  1. PAUSE for around 3-5 seconds - this is important because children can often work it out if given the time. Children read more slowly than adults do and need time to think. If we jump in too quickly, not only do we make them reliant on us to help them, but we undermine their self-confidence.
  2. PROMPT if the child cannot read the word, we can offer them a phonic prompt.
  1. The first prompt should be a phonic prompt: “What’s the first sound in that word?”
  2. If they still can’t get it, sound the word for them with a slight pause between each sound (e.g., f..r…o…g). Encourage your child to sound out and then blend together the word.
  3. You could also identify the first sound and encourage them to sound out the rest or break the word into its syllables. It may be useful to cover the word and reveal it slowly, looking at the sounds or the sections of the word.
  4. If they still have difficulty, tell them the word and move on.
  1. PRAISE is an important part of reading and you should give specific praise when they have corrected an error or read the word correctly after a prompt. Praise should be specific, e.g: “You figured that out by yourself” or “You worked that out with only a little bit of help.”

 

We are very excited about the new direction of our home reading system and thank you for your support in strengthening your child’s reading.


Powered by Updat-ed