Parents, carers and other family members are undoubtedly the most important influences in their children’s lives. That’s why at Bedford, we strive to work together with our families by gaining their support for our school and by encouraging engagement in their children’s learning. It is this parental engagement that can bring about the most significant gains in achievement.

At Bedford, we love to read! We believe that reading allows us to be transported from our own world to another. It also helps us to learn new words and phrases, experience a range of emotions, and acquire new skills and knowledge. This is why reading has always been a key part of our children’s daily routine in school.

We are passionate about reading at Bedford and promote the fact that reading isn’t just for school, it’s for life! And that is why we are here to support you all at home as much as we can so we can together create confident readers with a love of reading for life!

Before lockdown, we asked our lovely Year 1 children for some top tips for reading at home. Here is what they said….

Here are more of our top tips to encourage family reading time at home:

• Try to prioritise reading in your own life. Children who see their parents reading regularly, are far more likely to become readers themselves
• Read to your child every day. The importance of reading to your children cannot be underestimated. We can sometimes forget about this and will just hear our child read their school reading book, but reading to our children is so important! Most children – even the older children – love listening to books read aloud. Even if it’s just 1 page a night
• Involve your child in choosing the book. Choosing from a variety of books (fairy tales, history, nature, science, mysteries etc…), will soon have your child developing a preference for a certain book or genre
• Re-read their favourite books often. Young children love hearing the same books read aloud over and over (and over) again! This re-reading helps the child to learn parts of the book off by heart and eventually they will begin to join in with their favourite parts
• Use different voices for the characters – this makes it fun!
• Make it quality family time together. For younger children, use this time for a cuddle or sit them on your lap. As they grow, have them snuggled sat beside you on the couch.
• Keeping their attention is key. Allowing children to doodle, draw or even colour while listening is ok and can actually help many to focus. No games, phones or screens though!
• When reading chapter books, don’t feel like you have to finish an entire chapter in one sitting. But do try to end at an exciting part so everyone is eager for the next day’s reading time.
• For those most reluctant readers – try using magazines instead. These are a great way to grab your child’s attention.

And finally, but most importantly, have fun!  Bring the books to life. There’s nothing more children love than dressing up and acting out their favourite stories. Even some of your everyday household objects could open up your child’s imagination and have them begging you to read more the next day.

Websites to support reading at home:

www.oxfordowl.co.uk

• Click on ‘Oxford Owl for Home’
• Click on ‘Free e Book Library’
• Browse the library according to your child’s book band level.
• Click onto the chosen book
• They can either listen to the book by pressing ‘Audio’ or read it themselves
• There are also activities to complete

https://library.thenational.academy/

• Scroll down and click on one of the books
• You can also click and listen to interviews with the author of the books

https://clpe.org.uk/powerofpictures/books-and-teaching-sequences

• Scroll down and choose a book
• Click on videos
• Click on the video that says ‘Reading aloud’
• There are also other videos that you can watch too

This page is to help all our families with reading at home. If you need anything, please contact your teacher using the year group email address.

And remember, you’re all doing a great job!

Supporting our EAL families

At Bedford, everybody matters and we are here to support and help all our families. We are very happy to be able to offer a wide range of resources to support our EAL families at home with their child's learning. Please speak/email your class teacher if you would like to loan some dual language books or some maths games.