Encourage Primary Years

• Visit the library regularly.
• Let your child choose their own book from the relevant section and use their own library card
• Pick books that are at the level your child is able to read, and use newly learned words in interesting sentences.
• Show your child how much you enjoy reading (even if it’s a newspaper) and let them see you use a dictionary.
• Talk about the story, using the pictures.
• Include the characters, the setting and the plot (books don’t need to have words in order to tell a story).
• Give your child time (10 seconds) to sound out words they don’t recognise straight away.
• Ask your child to help you write the shopping list and match it to items in the shop.
• Play fun games with cards (Top Trumps, Pairs, Snap) and encourage your child to read out the rules for favourite games.
• Take turns to read aloud at story time and be an enthusiastic listener when your child reads aloud to you.
• Have a special place to keep your books at home and a special time to read them.

Take a book everywhere you go and make up stories as you travel, with each of you adding a new line.