Helping Your Child with Reading
One of the questions most frequently asked at parents' evenings is about reading - what books might your child enjoy now they are secondary school or now they are moving from KS3 into KS4? How do we encourage our children to read and help them to enjoy books more? At St. Francis, your child will be issued with a reading journal in years 7 and 8; our intention here is to encourage pupils to read more but also to include parents in this process. So, how can you help?
- Let your child see that you read and enjoy books, papers and magazines.
- Help choose books that are not too easy or too hard (only a few mistakes reading the first page)
- Listen to them read for short bursts of time (15 minutes)
- Take turns reading, especially if the book is long or stretching them.
- Tell them difficult words.
- If a lot of words are being misread just ask to hear the sentence again so it makes sense.
- Talk about the book and the characters in it.
- Try not to make it too pressurised.
- Encourage them to go to the library.
- Encourage them to complete their reading journal and take an interest in what they are reading
- Make sure they do read for pleasure as well as for homework!
- Boys love non-fiction; please make sure they are reading some fiction too
Reading list for year 7, year 8 and year 9. These are very much interim reading lists and will be added to as we progress through the year!
A good place to start browsing is Cool Reads - a site where teenagers review books for teenagers; get your child to log onto this site and begin discovering! Any reviews of books that your child feels inspired to write may be emailed to me to make into a poster, at - vcox@stfrancis.cc
Please let me know of any other books your child has enjoyed!