As a parent, you have an important role in helping your child to read. By sharing books and reading with your child you can help your child to develop a love of books and an interest in language.This will help their literacy now and will make a difference to their whole future.

Even small babies enjoy being sung to and read to, and they like it when you tell them stories and rhymes. All this is a good basis for their later enjoyment of books.

Reading aloud is one of the most important ways you can help your child to read and write - and it's never too early to start! It is also important to continue reading aloud to your child, even when they have begun to read by themselves.

Where possible read a whole story or chapter at a time so that it makes sense. Young children enjoy reading the same story lots of times. This helps them to learn the language and understand the story and they often begin to join in with you when they know it well.

Look at the pictures together and talk about what is happening in the story. Make reading aloud fun for you and your child using actions and sounds, this will also help your child to understand what is happening in the stories.

Make story props for play around a story such as simple finger puppets of the characters made of card or felt. You can use these props while you are reading the story or to re-tell the story and play together afterwards.

Sing songs and rhymes together and make up actions to go with the songs. You could even make up your own songs about your child's favourite story together to the tune of another song you know well in the languages you speak.

CLPE runs development courses for parents to support their children with early language, reading and writing. For more details about these courses contact CLPE.

This page is in development - please visit us again for further ideas for parents.