Following on from our popular blog about supporting numeracy at home, we have put together some tips and resources on supporting literacy and reading at home. As always we love hearing from you so please get in touch to share your top tips with us and if you know a great resource we haven’t mentioned, please let us know.

Here are our top 5 tips to help:

1. Make time to read – reading with your child is so important. Try to find a regular time when you can share a story together. As children get older they might like to read aloud to you or, as they progress you could share some quiet reading time as a family with everyone reading their own choice of book.
2. Be active library members – going to the library encourages your child to explore new books on different subjects. Its a cheap, mostly free, way of ensuring access to a variety of books covering different topics.
3. Use everyday scenarios – make literacy part of your every day routine. Talk and discuss the things you see around you. This could be anything from road signs to instructions on packaging. Opportunities to read are everywhere.
4. Encourage mark making – even in the digital age it is important to still encourage your child to write. For preschoolers, any kind mark making is important so try to make this part of play. As they get older look for opportunities to get them to write things down and practice simple tasks like writing a shopping list of a message in a birthday card.
5. Speak to school – as always we encourage getting to know what your child’s school policy or approach is. Many schools will have a literacy section on their website. If possible chat to the teacher and always discuss any concerns you have with school staff.

One of our favourite resources is the National Literacy Trust, they have a huge amount of information, ideas and activities on their website which can be used at school and at home. Their brilliant site for parents, Words for Life,  provides milestones, tips, fun resources and advice to help parents support their children’s literacy development. It is broken down by age and also by theme, making it really easy to find just what you need.

https://literacytrust.org.uk/parents-and-families/

Parents Zone Scotland has some brilliant resources all about applying literacy skills in everyday routines in a meaningful way. E.g. reading to your child every day, learning nursery rhymes together and pointing out signs in the local community. Their leaflets provide fun ideas to encourage good reading habits at different ages and stages.

https://education.gov.scot/parentzone/learning-at home/Supporting%20literacy%20at%20home

Cbeebies for grownups has online games and tasks that you can do alongside your preschooler to help them develop their literacy skills in a fun and engaging way. The site also has advice and guidelines for grownups around a variety of subjects. Take a look here:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/grownups

The School Run is a great site full of information of all aspects of school life. They have some great articles and advice on literacy as well as information explaining what is expected at each key stage.

https://www.theschoolrun.com/develop-your-childs-literacy-skills-early-years