Reading with Children
Reading brings parents and children closer together
Reading allows parents to spend quality time with their children and it can also be beneficial for your mental wellbeing. Parents often put pressure on themselves to spend long periods reading with their children, however, research suggests that even 10 minutes of reading a day can have a dramatic impact. BookTrust, the UK’s largest children’s reading charity, notes that it is never too early to start reading with your children.
our recommended reading list
0 - 2 years
- The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
- Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell
- The Baby’s Catalogue by Janet and Allan Ahlberg
- Where’s Spot? by Eric Hill
- We’re Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury
- Mr Grumpy’s Outing by John Burningham
- Owl Babies by Martin Waddell and Patrick Benson
- The Odd Egg by Emily Gravett
- HUG by Jez Alborough
- Handa’s Surprise, Walker by Eileen Browne
our recommended reading list
3 - 4 years
- The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
- Guess How Much I Love You by Sam McBratney
- Whistle for Willie by Ezra Jack Keats
- Where Do Diggers Sleep at Night? by Brianna Caplan Sayres
- Duck and Goose, 1, 2, 3 by Tad Hills
- A Little Stuck by Oliver Jeffers
- Up, Up, Up, Down! by Kimberly Gee
- The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler
- The 3 Little Pigs by Patricia Seibert
- We’re Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury
our recommended reading list
5 - 6 years
- The Tiger Who Came to Tea by Judith Kerr
- Lost and Found by Oliver Jeffers
- Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson
- The Snowman by Raymond Briggs
- Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell
- We’re Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury
- The Cat in the Hat by Dr Seuss
- I want my hat back by Jon Klassen
- Whatever Next by Jill Murphy
- A Squash and a Squeeze by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler
our recommended reading list
6 - 7 years
- Iced Out by C K Smouha
- Lots by Marc Martin
- Look Up! by Nathan Bryon
- Superbat by Matt Carr
- Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell
- How to be Extraordinary by Rashmi Sirdeshpande
- The Danger Gang by Tom Fletcher
- Salty Dogs by Matty Long
- The Legend of Spud Murphy by Eoin Colfer
- The Lost Homework by Richard O’Neill
Jolly Phonics Letter Sounds
Learning to tell sounds apart is a key literacy skill in the Early Years and a first step in being able to read and write.
As parents and teachers we do this orally - helping our children distinguish between sounds like 'd is for dog, c is for cat'. Being able to tell sounds apart in this way is called sound discrimination.
Learning beginning letter sounds is the next step to linking a child's oral language skills to written language - what they see and will attempt to write themselves. It is extremely important that, as adults, we model the correct pronunciation of the letter sounds.
Saying the wrong sounds for each letter, sounding out words (segmenting and blending) extremely difficult for young children. Examples of this are:
‘muh’ instead of ‘m’ – try to sound-out the word ‘manner’, when the initial sound is ‘muh’ and not ‘m’.
‘buh’ instead of ‘b’ – try to sound-out the word ‘banana’, when the initial sound is ‘buh’ and not ‘b’.
‘tuh’ instead of ‘t’ – try to sound-out the word ‘tennis’, when the initial sound is ‘tuh’ and not ‘t’.
It is more difficult to ‘unteach’ the wrong sounds, once learnt.
