​1) Read to your child daily for at least 10 minutes. Talk about the story and the pictures, have fun with the character voices, predict what might happen next, ask your child to join in repetitive phrases and discuss your favourite parts. This will build your child’s love of books as well as modelling how reading sounds and how we need to use language.

2) Teach your child how to be independent. Demonstrate how to open and close their school bag, lunch box, drink bottle, containers and food packaging. Expect them to have a go. Teach them how to put on and take off their jumper or jacket. Allow children to throw their own rubbish in the bin and clean up their workspace.

3) Give your child little jobs to help out at home. This will teach them to be responsible and helpful. Ask simple problem solving questions during purposeful activities. Such as when setting the table, children can work out how many forks and knives are required. There are lots of opportunities to practise counting forwards and backwards. Show your child how to count with one-to-one matching. Do this whilst they are playing. For example, when they have built a tower with blocks, you could say “I wonder how many blocks you used to build that tall tower.” Show them how to count forward by touching each object once.

4) Practise turn taking in games. Teach your child to have patience when waiting their turn. Explain to your child that it is okay to lose a game and show them how to win gracefully.

5) Educate your child in understanding that there are times to speak and there are times to listen. Teach effective communication skills. Eg. Where do our eyes look when we are speaking and listening? How do we use our voice to make it sound interesting and clear?

6) Model how to behave in certain situations and talk about how there are consequences as a result of choices in behaviour. Notice and praise your child when they are making good choices. Help your child to be resilient. Parents can help to do this by role-playing different scenarios.

7) If your child has been at preschool, spend some time talking to your child about their day. Ask them direct questions. For example, who did you play with today? What story did you read? What did you play with outside? What was your favourite activity? Tell me about something you made. Try to avoid open-ended questions, such as what did you do today? Tell your child about your day too. This helps to model correct sentence structure.

8) Provide your child with lots of fun craft experiences. Allow your child to keep a large box and fill it with recyclable materials that they can use to design and make things. Some ideas: cardboard rolls; milk lids; juice containers; yogurt pots; empty cereal boxes; left over paper plates; empty tissue boxes; shoe boxes; paddle pop sticks; unused patty pans; cotton balls; foil; buttons; ice cream containers; egg cartons; wool; ribbons from presents; used wrapping paper. Add a few purchased items such as pair of safety scissors, glue stick, packet of textas, sticky tape, some coloured paper and a packet of googly eyes. Craft making promotes creativity, imagination, fine motor skills, self help skills, thinking, problem solving, confidence and independence.

9) Buy an empty scrapbook and focus on learning one letter a week. Ask your child to draw pictures or cut and paste pictures from magazines that begin with that letter. This will be a wonderful resource book for your child to use to consolidate knowledge about letters and initial sounds.
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10) Practise writing lower case letters in different textures and forms of mediums. Eg. In the sandbox; with a paintbrush and water on the ground; using play doh; in a salt tray; using crayons, textas, pens, pencils, chalk or paint. This will help them to be confident writers. Model the correct directionality of the letters and ensure they start in the right position. Provide opportunities for your child to practise writing their name. Only use a capital letter for the first initial of their name.

Before I was a parent, I didn't understand when parents told me that their child didn't want to read their home reader at home. They enjoyed reading at school so why was home reading so different. Part of me thought it was due to poor home routines as school is very structured and routine based. That was until I had my own children and realised the struggle is real!! Some children don't want to read when they get home. They love being read to but reading themselves is a whole different scenario. My little boy just wanted to play and yes, play is very important, but so is home reading. Reading should be enjoyable and not a battle.
In my first ever blog, I will endeavour to help parents to manage home reading as well as explain the significant importance. 

Some helpful hints
1. Try to establish a good reading time that is uninterrupted. 5 - 10 minutes is all you will need. 
2. If they are reluctant to read, offer to read together and read a page or sentence each. Modelling how reading sounds is a good help for a developing reader.
3. Praise their efforts for attempting tricky words and for how they are using their voice. 
4. Reward or offer incentives if they need some encouragement. Eg. Extra playtime, special time with mum/dad; some screen time; a little treat; choice in dinner; sticker chart; etc Whatever works for you! 
5. If all else fails, read the story to them. Sit them next to you and show how you enjoy reading. Talk about the characters, the plot or your favourite parts. You might find they join in with you.


What if they bring the same book home again and again?
Bringing home a book more than once is okay. I actually recommend it! As the first time, children are learning about the story and doing a lot of problem solving of new words. The second time they can work on making it sound good, by phrasing words together, increasing fluency and expression. 
If they bring home the same book it is often because they enjoy the story or it is an easy book to read. Encourage them to bring a new book next time and show appreciation when they remember to do so. 

Why reading allowed is important?
Reading out aloud at home is very important. It enables children to practise their phrasing and fluency. They need to know how to make their reading sound good. It also allows children to hear their mistakes, to make sure they are making sense and sounding right. Of course readers need to check for visual errors as well and look at parts of words. 
I believe it is the parents responsibility to listen to their children read each afternoon/evening/morning (whatever suits you). But it is also important to see the print to ensure they are actually reading the words on the page. Yes I know parents can get busy and reading to you whilst cooking or driving is okay if you are listening, responding, praising and questioning. However, would you know if they substituted a word that still made sense? Of course if they do this now and again it doesn't matter. But if they are making the same or similar mistakes over and over again, confusions can occur. 

Do I tell my child a word if they get stuck?
It depends!

Yes, if it is a name of a character or if it is an uncommon/tricky word such as unique or enough. These are words that are difficult to use visual information or meaning especially if it is not in their vocabulary. 

No, for many reasons. 
If your child appeals all the time they are not becoming independent problem solvers. They will be become reliant on the helper and not think for themselves. 
Children are capable of thinking about the story and using their knowledge of phonics to solve most words. All it needs is a little encouragement and prompting. (This will be my next post).
They will feel successful if they do it themselves. It is very important to give children wait time to solve. This is something I have had to learn myself. Resist the urge to jump in to help. Encourage thinking and to use what they know. ​