Making Books FunDuring our Book Talk Workshop we looked at fun opportunities to help your child’s enjoyment of reading.

Making Books Fun

Support choice based on interests

Join in with repeated phrases

Guess the rhyming word at the end of a sentence

Do some arts and crafts about the story

Makeup some actions

Make noises to match the pictures

Can you guess what will happen next?

Explore the texts and pictures in books together and talk about what you see. This will help your child with reading. It will build their imagination, vocabulary, their reading confidence and comprehension and will be a lot of fun.

The three Ps

Pause: give your child a little time to sound out an unfamiliar word

Prompt: ask if they’d like some help

Praise: remember to praise the effort, not the outcome

Build on the conversation by adding more information to your child’s comments. For example, the mouse in the picture is small and brown, with big ears and a smiley face.

Closed questions have short answers, like “How is the mouse feeling?”

Open questions encourage longer answers, like “Why do you think the mouse is feeling scared?”

Relate the book to the child’s experience. For example, “Have you ever felt scared?”

At the end of the book try a question about the book as a whole. For example “What was the most interesting thing that we learned about sharks today?”

See if your child can remember as a short fact at the end of the book. For example, “Can you think of a type of shark?”

Beyond the Page

Just a reminder that there are easy ways which you can support reading outside school, like stories on the move or using technology together. This will build children’s imagination and vocabulary and will help them become better readers.

I am sure you had great fun with our Story Cards but you can make up your own Story Cards using photos, pictures from magazines or asking your children to draw topics for their story adventure.

Story Starters

Once upon a time … And every day …Until one day …And because of that …Until finally …And ever since that day …… The End

Top Story Tips

Make your child the star!

Favourite toy or pet can be the sidekick.

Use something that happened during the day, or your child’s interests.

Ask your child to make up names or key facts along the way.

Ask your child what they think should happen next.

Children love hearing about stories from your childhood and the things you got up to.

I have attached some of Save the Children’s Talk Topic Posters and these also may be a fun way to help your child’s reading, imagination and comprehension skills. Enjoy this time together!!!