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How parents can support reading from home

Sound Waves Literacy 23/5/23

While combining various instructional approaches is ideal for reading success, home reading is an excellent way to support and reinforce reading comprehension. After all, the goal is to provide students with as many opportunities as possible to practise their reading skills.

When using Decodable Readers for home reading, we recommend sending home books that feature phoneme–grapheme relationships students have already learned. This allows students to review their learning and read the Decodable Reader independently, without prompting.

Be sure to provide each student a personal copy of the appropriate Decodable Reader, matched to their ability level (Support, Core, or Extended).

Our tips for supporting reading from home

Encourage Sounding Out

If a student is stuck on a word, prompt them to say the sound for each grapheme and blend the sounds together. Avoid asking the student to guess the word based on the first letter or pictures.

Explain Special Words

Special Words are harder to sound out. If a student is stuck on a Special Word, explain how to read the word and model it for them. For example, for the word said, you could say: ‘This word is tricky because the ai shows /e/. Watch me read it: /s/, /e/, /d/, said.’

Correct Errors

If a student makes an error, stop and correct. For example, if a student reads pet as pat, you could:

• Repeat the error back to the student: ‘Pat? Is this word pat?’
• Point to the part of the word they read incorrectly: ‘This e shows /e/. Read the word again.’

Discuss Word Meanings

Pause to discuss the meaning of unfamiliar words and words with multiple meanings. This will help to build their vocabulary and comprehension.

Note:

You’ll also find these tips at the back of each Sound Waves Decodable Reader, underneath the Book Chat section.

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