Parents urged to read to children

Children in England are not reading enough outside of schoolParents are being urged to make a New Year's resolution to spend more time reading to their children.
Schools Secretary Ed Balls is spearheading the initiative ahead of the National Year of Reading 2008, which officially starts in April.
Mr Balls said reading a child a bedtime story every night could have a huge impact on their development.
"Reading can bring fun to their lives, feed their imagination, and develop their curiosity about the world."
Too many children today are not reading for pleasure - and this is harming not just our children's reading skills, but also their imagination and general knowledge
Ed Balls, Children, Schools and Families Secretary
"As parents we need to make reading a part of everyday life for our children - whether that is reading stories to younger children or talking about books and magazines with older kids," he said.
A recent survey found the reading performance of children in England had fallen from third to 19th in the world.
The Progress in International Reading Literacy Study, published in November, highlighted significant increases in the proportion of English 10-year-olds with the "least positive" attitudes to reading and who said they very seldom read stories or novels outside school.
Mr Balls said it could make "all the difference" if parents set aside 10 minutes a day before bedtime to read with their children.

Reading tips

"Too many children today are not reading for pleasure - and this is harming not just our children's reading skills, but also their imagination and general knowledge," he said.
The National Year of Reading is being run by the National Literacy Trust, which has some ideas to encourage reading in different age groups.
These include:
For babies to 3-year-olds - make a scrapbook about your child full of pictures and words. Read the words with your child and get them to say what else should be in their story.
For three to five-year-olds - cut out pictures from catalogues or magazines of objects that all begin with the same letter, plus a few that do not. Write down the names of the objects and get your child to match the picture to the name.
For five to eight-year-olds. - find your family's top five reads. Ask everyone in your family to name their favourite reads - it could be a book, magazine, comic or newspaper. Involve grandparents, cousins etc. And see if the neighbours agree.

Source http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7163172.stm

Story Sack

A story sack is a large cloth bag containing a children's book with supporting materials to stimulate reading activities and make shared reading a memorable and enjoyable experience. The sack contains soft toys of the book's main characters, and props and scenery that parents and other adults can use with children to bring a book to life, even if the adult's reading skills are limited. The sack might include a non-fiction book on the same theme, an audio-tape of the story, a language-based game and a short guide containing questions to ask, words to consider and other ways to extend the reading activity.

Story Sacks were developed by Neil Griffiths, formally a head teacher in Swindon, who now directs the National Support Project for Storystacks on behalf of the Basic Skills Agency. The initiative has now spread to schools, pre-schools and libraries throughout the country. They are designed to help adults share books with children in a way that is positive, theatrical, special, interactive and fun. Available to buy online at Storysacks

Jolly Phonics

In Jolly Phonics the 42 main sounds of English are taught, not just the alphabet. You can listen to the letter sounds HERE
Parental support is important to all children as they benefit from plenty of praise and encouragement whilst learning. Not all children find it easy to learn and blend sounds. Children should learn each letter by its sound, not its name. So learning 'a' is for applpe, 'b' is for ball, 'c' is for cat ranther than learning the ABC.