Support for Parents

There are lots of great websites but we think The BookTrust is a wonderful site. It has lots of hints and tips about how you can support your child. 

Why read at home with your child?

Children who chose to read at the age of 11 will achieve higher GCSE results than children who do not. 

There can be few things as powerful as regularly reading to a young child. It has astonishing benefits for children: comfort and reassurance, confidence and security, relaxation, happiness and fun. Giving a child time and full attention when reading them a story tells them they matter. It builds self-esteem, vocabulary, feeds imagination and even improves their sleeping patterns. 

Regularly reading to a child for the love of it provides a connection between parent and child from the very early days and helps build strong family ties. Families who enjoy reading together have more opportunities for discussion, developing empathy and attachment. Reading to their infant is one of the greatest gifts parents can give. By starting the journey of building a lifelong love of reading for pleasure, parents are giving their child the opportunity to be the best they can be: children who read for pleasure do better in a wide range of subjects at school and it also positively impacts children’s wellbeing.  

    Reading is a great habit. Like all habits, it needs repetition and regularity to establish itself. Because it                needs quiet time, and our lives today are very short of this, parents need to create it for their children. This         means consciously making time and keeping interruptions to a minimum.

      The earlier parents can start, the better as it allows the maximum time for their child to grow up with                   and for the love to take root, grow and become part of their life. And what an enriched life that will be.

     (Alison David - National Literacy Trust)