Reading is a very important skill for adults and children and is something that we all use daily within our lives. If your child attends a nursery, they will start to be taught the basics of reading often by helping them to recognise certain letters and the sounds they make. This is sometimes done using “jolly phonics” which is a fun song all about letters and the sounds they make.

When your child starts school they will very quickly progress to starting to be able to put these sounds together to read words. Often the first books they are given consist only of pictures and as a parent you may see this as a bit pointless. The reason behind this is to get the children to look at a picture and first try and figure out what is happening within the picture, this will not only help with their imagination but will also give them an idea as to what the words would say on that page, should it have had some.

After your child has grasped this they may move on to books containing simple and often repetitive sentences. You may notice that your child starts to instantly recognise words such as The or And.