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English Tips for parents

 

Developing Oral Language With Your Child

Top Tips for Parents

Infants -1st Class

  • Listen to what your child is saying /trying to say and respond to contributions
  • Make and maintain eye contact while talking with your child
  • Explain the meaning of words
  • Talk through activities
  • Talk through everyday experiences
  • Involve your child in discussions /plans
  • Ask/Answer questions
  • Teach your child nursery rhymes,songs,poems, raps
  • Develop your child’s receptive language by asking him/her to follow simple instructions
  • Assist your child to express ideas in an orderly ,fluent way
  • Read to your child each night

Second to Fourth Class

  • Set aside 10-15 minutes to discusst the day’s happenings
  • Encourage your child to express and justify opinions
  • Involve your child in adult conversation when appropriate
  • Talk about your child’s favourite T.V. programme
  • Play language games which focus on words ie Scrabble,Crosswords
  • Encourage your child to talk about experiences with a wide range of people,peers,relations,other adults
  • Listen carefully and clarify meaning “Do you mean/or is this what you mean?
  • Encourage your child to give reasons for decisions
  • Encourage your child to listen courteously to the opinions of others
  • talk about school topics and assignments

Fifth and Sixth class

  • Encourage your child to develop a positive attitude to speaking/listening
  • Discuss your child’s school work -successes/concerns/interests
  • Respect your child’s opinions and feelings
  • Involve your child in adult conversations ,when appropriate
  • Help your child to extend his range of words in specialised subjects
  • Encourage your child to listen and respond courteously to others
  • Watch and discuss T.V. news/current affairs programmes together
  • Assist your child to locate informationin local library/internet
  • Talk about school topics and assignments
  • Play commercial games that focus on word building

Reading Tips for Parents

How to Encourage Your Child to Read 5—7 Year Olds


Read Yourself: Show a good example by reading for fun and talking about the reading you do at work and at
home: books, newspapers, magazines, letters etc.
Keep Books at Home: Let your child know that books are a part of your life.
Keep Books Safe: Make your child their own special place to keep their books in their bedroom.
Point Out Words Around You : Help your child to read the words around them: on food packets in the supermarket, on
buses, in newspapers, in recipes.
Visit the Local Library: It’s free to join! All libraries have children’s sections with plenty of suitable and age appropriate
reading material.
Make a Time to Read: Why not have a bedtime story every night? Encourage your child to join in reading with you.
Let Everyone Help: Encourage your child to read with other people: grandparents, brothers and sisters, aunties and
uncles.
Keep in Touch with School: Make sure your child has books to read. Ask
the teacher for advice on suitable books. Make a regular time slot of about ten minutes every day to listen to them read. Talk to the class
teacher about your child’s reading.

How to Help with Reading

Be Positive: Praise your child for trying hard with their reading. Let them know it’s all right to make mistakes.
Turn Off the TV: With no distractions, you can concentrate properly on the reading and enjoy the reading together.
Give Them Time: Let them make a guess before you tell them the word.
Help Them Get the First Sound: Help them to get the first letter and try to sound the words out.
Use the Pictures: Help them to look at the pictures for clues.
Point with a Finger: Encourage them to follow the words with their finger until they become more confident readers.
Don’t Make Them Try Too Hard: It doesn’t matter if you have to tell them the word sometimes.over and over. It’s good practice.
Ask Lots of Questions About the Story: Check they understand the story they have read by asking them questions about what has happened.
See if they remember what they read last time.
Start Writing: Encourage them to read back their own writing.
Don’t Read for Too Long: A good ten minutes is better than a difficult half hour!
Make it Regular: Ten minutes every night is much better than an odd hour once in a while.

Make Reading Fun

Buy books or book tokens as presents.
Buy comics and magazines after school instead of sweets.
Have a laugh reading joke books.
Make your own books together. Write words and draw pictures for them.
Play alphabet games and try to think of a word for every letter of the alphabet.
Spend time chatting about books and stories.
Have alphabet magnets on the fridge and make words together.
Tell stories with favourite teddies and toys.
Make up stories about your child.
Buy an interactive book that the children can read on the computer.
Play I-Spy.
Make shopping lists and read recipes to cook things together.
Write stories and poems together.
Listen to story tapes – great for car journeys.
Play rhyming word games – how many rhyming words can you find?

What to Pick?
Encourage your child to read all kinds of books and reading material: stories,
information books, comics, computer games, manuals, joke books, pop-up
books, puzzle books, CD-ROMs, the Internet. Move from short chapter books with pictures to longer chapter
books as they become better readers.
Who Can Help?
Let your child choose. Don’t worry if they sometimes want to read books you think they have outgrown.
Let Them Read Their Favourites: Don’t worry if they want to read the same books. Children are more likely to
read a book if they have picked it themselves. Speak to the class teacher to get some advice on which books to choose. Ask the librarian
or bookseller to help you choose..


Worthy Things To Do With Books
Swap a book with a friend
Read to someone
Make a book as a present
Write an extra chapter for your favourite book
Learn about something new by reading a book on it
Take a book on a journey to make it less boring
Visit your library
Read the same book over and over again
Read a new book by an author you have never encountered before
Read all the books your favourite author has written
Re-design the cover of your favourite boo

Reading Tips for Parents: 7 -12 years old

How to Encourage Your Child to Read

Read Yourself: Show a good example by reading for fun and talking about the reading you do at work and at home: books,
newspapers, magazines, letters etc.
Keep Books at Home: Let your child know that books are a part of your life.
Keep Books Safe: Make your child their own special place to keep their books in their bedroom.
Visit the Local Library: It’s free to join! As well as taking out story books, use visits to the library as a time to find books about your
child’s hobbies and interests: pets, football, music, bikes etc.
Make a Time to Read: Set aside a time to read for the family – after school or before bedtime. Encourage independent reading but
don’t be afraid to still tell or read a bedtime story.
Don’t just read books: Encourage your child to read newspapers, TV Guides, comics and magazines.
Use Reading to Get Information: Ask your child to get information from the Yellow Pages, the Internet, Cookery Books etc.
Talk about Books: Talk to your child and their friends about why they chose a book and their preferences. Talk about the
books you like to read.
Let Your Child Read With Younger Children: Encourage them to read to other members of the family: brothers and sisters, cousins etc.
Keep in Touch with School: Make sure your child has books to read. Ask the teacher for advice on suitable books. Make a regular time slot of about ten minutes every day to listen to them read.

Talk to the class teacher about your child’s reading.

 

How to Help with Reading

Be Positive: Praise your child for trying hard with their reading. Let them know it’s all right to make mistakes.
Turn Off the TV: With no distractions, you can concentrate properly on the reading and enjoy the reading together.
Give Them Time: Let them make a guess before you tell them the word. Let them read to the end of the line before correcting their mistakes.
Spot Words Inside Words: Help them to spot words they know within larger more complicated words.
Read On, Then Go Back and Guess: Read the sentence through to the end, then go back and guess the difficult word.
Don’t Make Them Try Too Hard: It doesn’t matter if you have to tell them the word sometimes.
Let Them Read Their Favourites: Don’t worry if they want to read the same books over and over, or stick to the one type of book. If they are really
stuck, ask the teacher or librarian to suggest something they might like.
Make the Story Come to Life: Encourage your child to read with expression. This will help them to read more fluently.
Ask Lots of Questions About the Story:
What would you have done if you were …..?
Does this book remind you of anything that has happened
to you?
Which is your favourite character?
Does this story remind you of any others you have read?
Can you guess what is going to happen next?
Use a Dictionary: Buy a family dictionary and use it to check the meaning of new words.
Read Their Own Written Work: Encourage your child to read back over their own written work to make sure it makes sense.
Don’t Read for Too Long: You don’t want to put the child off reading. A good ten minutes is better than a difficult half hour.
Make it Regular: Ten minutes every night is much better than an odd hour once in a while.

 

Make Reading Fun

.. Buy books or book tokens as presents.
.. Buy comics and magazines after school instead of sweets.
.. Have a laugh reading joke books.
.. Encourage your child to make their own books about any subject that interests them.
.. Spend time chatting about books and stories.
.. Let children play on the computer using a word processing package.
.. Buy an interactive book that the children can read on the computer.
.. Play word games – scrabble, crosswords, word searches etc.
.. Make shopping lists and read recipes to cook things together.
.. Write stories and poems together.
.. Listen to story tapes.
.. Watch film and TV versions of books and discuss how it compares to the written
word.

How to Choose Books : What to Pick?
Encourage your child to read all kinds of books and reading material: stories, information books, comics, computer
games, manuals, joke books, pop-up books, puzzle books, CD-ROMs, the Internet. Move from short chapter books with pictures to longer chapter books as they become better readers.
Who Can Help?
Let your child choose. Don’t worry if they sometimes want to read books you think they have outgrown.
Children are more likely to read a book if they have picked it themselves. Speak to the class teacher to get some advice on which books to choose. Ask the librarian or bookseller to help you
choose.
Worthy Things To Do With Books
.. Swap a book with a friend
.. Read to someone
.. Make a book as a present
.. Write an extra chapter for your favourite book
.. Learn about something new by reading a book on it
.. Take a book on a journey to make it less boring
.. Visit your library
.. Read the same book over and over again
.. Read a new book by an author you have never encountered before
.. Read all the books your favourite author has written
.. Re-design the cover of your favourite book

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