Promoting Reading At Home

*Originally posted on my previous blog www.mrbowkerinmalaysia.com in April 2023*

As part of Book Week 2023 (which you can read about here) I set up a parent workshop to promote reading at home. Although a lot of this information is aimed at parents, much of it is useful for us as teachers, or may be information you want to find a way to share with your parents. Remember, pupils spend around 900 hours a year in school around 7800 hours at home - so finding a way to support their learning at home may go a long way to improve their learning within school. As mentioned in my Book Week post, in Malaysia, 95% of adults are literate, which is a big improvement in the last 20 years when it was around 80%. However, being literate in this sense simply means being able to read and write short sentences. A study by International Islamic University and University Kebangsaaan, both situated in Malaysia, have shown that in 2019, the average Malaysian only reads 2 books a year, and many of this number comes from students being 'forced' to read books for exams. The studies suggest that there is a no culture of reading at home or for enjoyment for the majority of Malaysians. The reasons for this are the increase in screen time (TV / Video games), a preference for surfing the web, social media, a lack of reading culture within families and various other forms of entertainment - eating at restaurants, bowling etc etc. These studies, did however find a strong, if unsurprising, link between having a strong culture of reading in a family and having children who read for enjoyment. Although the numbers will differ from country to country, the current trend of an increase in screen time and decrease in time spent reading is common around the globe.

The Importance of Reading

Reading is such a vital skill and impacts so many areas of a child's future success. So, why is reading so important?

Strategies to Support Reading (at home or in the classroom)

1. Make a family/class culture of reading This could mean that you have time each day or week that you all read together, or that you agree to read your books separately and then tell each other about them e.g around the dinner table.​ ​ For children – be sure to include books as part of the toy provision. They are there to be enjoyed and should be fun
   

2. Model Reading Your children will copy you. If you sit on your phone, computer or watch TV then they will do the same.​ ​If you read a book they are likely to ask you about it, show an interest and want to do the same.
   

3. Have Reading Playdates Invite other children round to read together.​ ​For example:​ 1. The children read together reading a page each at a time to each other​ 2. The children have fun dressing up as the characters​ 3. The children put on a short play of what they have read in the book for siblings or adults in the house
   

4. Encourage children to read what they enjoy Don't worry so much about reading levels, or what book they 'should' be reading at their age.​ Take them to a library or bookshop and let them choose something they enjoy – comics, poems, history, fiction, sports​. Cultivate the love of reading first – then start introducing books that you think may be of benefit - but do this gently and without pressurizing.
   

5. Create a reading space Reading on a comfy beanbag with a cup of hot chocolate sounds far more fun that sitting on a wooden chair.​ ​Create a space with your child that they want to use when reading then encourage them to enjoy it.
   

6. Consider Audiobooks Research has shown that reading comprehension improves when children read books and listen to them simultaneously. This is particularly true for kids who have short attention spans and lower reading skills.​ ​(Ideally you can read to your child, but if you do not have time, then this is a better substitute than screen time)
   

7. Help children understand they may not like every book they read. Disliking a few books does not mean a child has not mean a child does not like reading, it may take time to find the genre of book that your child does enjoy.

Improving reading at home, or in the class, can be separated into different sections. Firstly there is decoding. This is the ability to identify the written letters and their corresponding sounds. These then need blending together into words. This is usually covered in phonics and not something discussed here. Instead we are going to talk about fluency, which is the ability to read accurately, smoothly and with expression. This is the next step on from the basics of phonics. The second part of reading is comprehension, which is the ability to read text, process it and understand its meaning.

These two skills are different and as such the strategies to improve each are different. Neither of these lists are exhaustive, and different strategies.

Strategies to Improve Reading Fluency

Fluency is the ability to read accurately, smoothly and with expression may work better or worse for different children but all are worth considering.

* for number 3, Dolch words refers to a list of 220 of the most high frequency words used in the English language. By focusing on becoming familiar with these it can have a positive impact on fluency as these account for between 50-75% of the words encountered in primary level books.

Strategies to Improve Reading Comprehension

Comprehension is the ability to read text, process it and understand its meaning

1. Improve the child's vocabulary If a child knows the meaning of more words, then naturally they will understand more of the words they have read. This can be done in multiple way, including; - flash cards - reading books and discussing unknown words - makings lists of new words from books or daily life - Having a space at home to display new words and everyone in the family using them
   

2. Take a break and focus on the main idea Every few paragraphs or pages, take a break. Discuss what the main idea of the section is before moving on. This breaks the content into manageable chunks and ensures understanding is gained before moving on, which should help promote understanding and enjoyment of the what follows
   

3. Slow Down Don't aim to read and understand too much in one go. Set a realistic target and meet it. This gives your child time to process the information before moving on.
   

4. Ask Questions Asking questions and talking about the answers together is a great way to build comprehension and really highlights areas of understanding and areas of difficulty. For the UK curriculum, questions using the acronym VIPERS are commonly used.

VIPERS refers to the different domains / types of questions that are covered in the UK curriculum. Asking different types of questions and really support and develop comprehension in a way that will also support academic success.

The questions will change as a child moves from a KS1 level to a KS2 level, but the focus will remain the same, just with an increase in challenge.

Here are two great grids that explain the question types and give examples of questions that can be used. Focus on asking Vocabulary and Retrieval questions first, before moving on to Predicting, Explaining and then Sequencing and Inferring. This is not a hard and fast rule, however some of the skills practiced in retrieval and vocabulary questions will help later on with other question types e.g. Inference.

I hope you find this post useful either as a parent or as a teacher, and please do consider liking the Facebook page or signing up for the blog if you want more of the same.

Thanks for reading.

Laurence