Reading at Home

Reading with your child at home is the single most useful thing a family can do. Ten minutes a night, every night, beats an hour on a Sunday.

The Big Six of reading

Learning to read draws on six things at once:

• Oral language — speaking and listening
• Phonological awareness — hearing the sounds inside words
• Phonics — connecting those sounds to letters and letter groups
• Vocabulary — the bank of words a child knows
• Fluency — reading accurately and at a comfortable pace
• Comprehension — drawing meaning from what has been read

The Big Six of literacy: a guide for families

How we teach reading here

From Reception to Year 2, students learn to read through Read Write Inc. The program targets phonics, and builds vocabulary, fluency and comprehension alongside it.

Reading with your child

As your child's reading develops they will bring home decodable readers — books built from the sounds they have been taught, so that they can actually read them rather than guess at them.

Each reader should be read aloud to a family member over the week. Three times or more is better than once: the first read is work, the third is fluent, and fluency is what makes reading feel good.

Books and practice

• SPELD SA phonic readers — free decodable readers to download
• Reading Eggs — our students use this to reinforce their learning
• Libraries SA — find and borrow from your local library
• Storyline Online — popular children's books read aloud
• Indigenous Kids Read

For families

• Helping young children to read: what parents can do
• Great Start — supporting the learning of young children
• Let's Read — tips for reading with pre-school and junior primary children