Time
It is important to find a period in the day when you have plenty of time to spend with your child and settle down in a comfortable and quiet place to enjoy a favourite story together. Remember that books should be a natural part of our everyday interactions with children and not restricted to a certain time slot.
Purpose
Children learn about the various purposes of books through watching adults, so it is important to involve them in activities such as following a recipe in a cookery book or referring to an atlas when planning a trip to the seaside. Sharing books will help your child to develop an understanding of the elements of stories and about how information in non-fiction texts can help to answer questions.
Sharing books
Here are a few general points to think about when helping your child to enjoy books and to become familiar with how they 'work':
* Ask your child to look at the front cover of the book and to think about how it offers clues about the book's content.
* Talk to your child about the author and the illustrator. Think about any other books that you might have read by the same author. Look for books by a favourite author, either in bookshops or the library.
* Encourage your child to find the first page and to turn the pages as you read.
* Help your child to differentiate between illustrations and text by using words such as 'word', 'picture' and 'illustration'.
* Encourage your child to look carefully at the illustrations and to talk about what is happening in them. They may be able to tell the story, or make up their own, by 'reading' the pictures.
* Encourage your child to predict what might happen next in the story, or to guess how it might end. Try to use words such as 'start', 'beginning', 'next', 'after', 'then' and 'end'.
* Talk about the characters and their role in the story.
* Discuss favourite parts of the story.
* Retell the story together afterwards, sequencing key events in the right order. Use illustrations and props as prompts.
* Make up alternative endings to stories.
* Make up your own stories, using the same characters.
* When sharing familiar poems or rhymes, encourage your child to join in and to complete the rhymes at the end of lines. Have fun substituting words in the poem with your own rhyming words.
* When choosing books, think about your child's own interests and look for content that reflects these.
* Use your child's questions about the world as an opportunity to introduce some appropriate information books. Together you can look through the pictures and text and use them to solve problems and answer questions.
