Learning to read is a process that needs step-by-step teaching and plenty of practise at school and at home. Unlike walking or talking, reading is not a skill that we learn naturally — everyone needs to be taught how to read.
Reading requires two very important skills:

• decoding (reading) the words on the page
• making meaning from the words, sentences and paragraphs that are read.
  For children to learn how to decode words, they need to understand how sounds and letters link together. They are taught that:
• words can be broken up into sounds (the word ‘cat’ is made up of 3 sounds: c-a-t) and that sounds can be blended to form words (the sounds c-a-t blended, forms the word ‘cat’)
• the sounds in words can be represented by letters or groups of letters.

As children develop their understanding of letter-sound correspondences and apply this knowledge to reading words and texts, they learn more complex English spellings.

• The same sound can be represented by different letters; the words ‘play’, ‘rain’ and ‘stage’ all contain the sound /ay/ but the spelling is different in each one.
• The same letter can represent different sounds; the letter ‘c’ can represent a ‘k’ sound as in ‘cat’, or an ‘s’ sound as in ‘race’.
• Small parts of words can have a meaning all their own; in the word ‘walked’, the ‘-ed’ tells us that the walk has already happened — it marks past tense.
• Children practise their word reading skills by reading decodable texts that contain only the letter-sound correspondences children have been taught.
• As children develop their decoding skills and their reading becomes more automatic, they will move from reading simple decodable texts to authentic texts. Authentic texts are any texts that are read for enjoyment or learning and that support word reading, language development and engagement.

Children develop their language skills through the language they hear and read. In the early stages of reading instruction while children are developing their decoding skills, it is very important that they are read to often, so they hear lots of new words and learn about new things that they may not yet be able to read about themselves.

Parents play an important role in helping children learn to read by both:

• listening to your child read aloud to practise decoding words
• reading aloud to your child to build their understanding of language and literacy

Enjoy your reading journey with your child!