AT AGE 5, MOST children BECOME ABLE TO:

• Sound as if they are reading when they pretend to read.
• Enjoy being read to.
• Retell simple stories.
• Use descriptive language to explain or to ask questions.
• Recognise letters and letter-sound matches.
• Show familiarity with rhyming and beginning sounds.
• Understand that print is read left-to-right and top-to-bottom.
• Begin to match spoken words with written ones.
• Begin to write letters of the alphabet and some words they use and hear often.
• Begin to write stories with some readable parts.

How you can help with reading homework at this early stage.

Remember your child will not be able to read the book by themselves, this is an activity for you to do together.

• First look at the cover and read the title with your child – predict what the book might be about
• Open the book and you read the first page – establish that we read from left to right
• Get your child to turn the pages for you
• Encourage your child to help you with some sounds that we already know.
• If there are recurrent words in the story point them out.
• Look at and READ the pictures!
• Have fun.