Reading books from school: a guide for parents

01

Why did school send a book with no words?

In the first weeks of Reception, many children bring home a book with pictures and no words at all. It can look like a mistake. It isn’t. At that point your child is only just meeting their first letter sounds, so a book they could decode by themselves doesn’t exist yet. Schools that sort books by colour band often put wordless books first.

A wordless book is for talking. Reading needs two things: working out the words, and understanding the language once you have them. Phonics builds the first. Talk builds the second, and a wordless book is a very good excuse for it. Your child tells the story from the pictures, meets new words from you, guesses what might happen next and learns how a story sounds: “Once upon a time…”, “Then…”, “In the end…”.

Once a few sounds are secure and your child can blend them, books with words take over. Those first word books are a special kind, called decodable books.

02

What is a decodable book?

A decodable book uses only the letter sounds your child has already been taught, plus a handful of tricky words they learn by heart, like “the”, “I” and “to”. Every other word can be sounded out and blended. So when your child reads it, they are doing the real thing: reading words, not remembering or guessing them.

Schools in England teach phonics with a systematic programme, often one validated by the Department for Education (DfE). The decodable books are matched to that programme, so each new book adds only sounds the class has just learnt. The DfE’s Reading Framework says books children take home should match the sounds they know, too.

Why not swap it for a “real” book?

A book from the shops with “harder” words feels like a step up, but it works against your child. When most words use sounds they haven’t met, the only way through is to guess, and guessing is the habit phonics is trying to replace. The decodable book is practice set at exactly the right level. Real books still matter enormously: they are for you to read to your child (more in chapter 6).

Some decodable words may still look tricky, like “ship” or “night”. Letters that team up to make one sound are digraphs and trigraphs, and the common words with an unusual part are tricky words.

In our app, the Story game works the same way: your child reads a short decodable story, page by page, then answers questions about it.

03

Is their reading book too easy? Good

If your child zips through their school book, you might wonder if it should be harder. Usually, easy is the point. The first time a child reads a word they sound it out, letter by letter. Each time they meet it again it gets quicker, until they read it at a glance. That speed is called fluency, and it frees their attention for what the story means.

Fluency comes from rereading, not from rushing. The DfE’s Reading Framework is clear that pushing children to read faster doesn’t make them fluent: they can only read as fast as they can decode. Rereading the same book is how the decoding gets quick.

Many schools read each decodable book with a group several times in a week, often three, with a different job each time: first decoding the words, then reading with expression, then talking about what it means. Then the book comes home. Your child has practised it, so it should feel easy. That is them showing you what they can do.

If your child reads every word smoothly on the very first go, every time, it’s fine to mention it to the teacher. Otherwise, enjoy the easy reading, and add expression: do the voices, and pause at the full stops.

04

Are they reading, or guessing from the picture?

Children are clever, and pictures are tempting. A child who looks at a picture of a kitten and says “kitten” when the word is “cat” isn’t reading the word, they are reading the picture. Other signs: they look at the picture before the words, say a word that starts with the right letter but isn’t there, or “read” a book perfectly with their eyes somewhere else.

Guessing used to be taught. Children were shown several “cues” to work out a word: the picture, the first letter and what would make sense. You may hear this called three-cueing, or in England the “searchlights” model. Since the Rose Review of 2006, schools in England have taught systematic phonics instead, and the DfE’s Reading Framework says children shouldn’t be given books that expect them to guess from the first letter, the pictures or the context.

Guessing works for a while, then stops working, because longer books have fewer pictures and harder words. Sounding out works on every word, with or without a picture. It’s also exactly what the Year 1 phonics screening check looks for, with its made-up “alien” words that no picture can help with.

05

How long should we read each night?

There is no national rule. What matters far more than the length is doing a little most days. Many schools suggest around ten minutes for children in Reception and Year 1, and some ask for a set number of reads a week, so check what your child’s school asks for.

Ten calm minutes beats thirty tired ones. Early reading is hard work, and a child who is yawning or upset is no longer learning much. Stop while it is still going well, even mid-book. Bedtime isn’t the only time: breakfast, the bath or the weekend all count.

The reading record

Most schools send a reading record or diary home with the book. The teacher reads it, so a short, specific note is more useful than “read well”. Try what they read, and one thing you noticed.

06

Keep reading to them, even now they can read

A decodable book is set at the level your child can decode, which in Reception might be a few short sentences. The stories they can understand when you read aloud are far richer than that. Reading to them is how they meet long words, clever plots and the kind of sentences they will one day write themselves.

The DfE’s Reading Framework includes a model note for parents. It says your child will bring home two books: one carefully chosen so they can work out all the words to read to you, and one for you to read to them and talk about together.

• 22books home in the DfE’s model note: one they read, one you read
• 300,000300,000fewer words heard by age 5 if never read to, against a book a day (US estimate, 2019)

Read the whole story through the first time, with feeling, and save the chat for later reads. Read favourites again and again; children ask for the same book because each time they understand a little more. Talk about the pictures and how the characters feel, rather than quizzing them on what happened. Carry on long after they can read to themselves: well into the junior years, a story at bedtime is still one of the best things you can do.

Reading and writing grow together. When your child starts copying words from their book, our guide to letter formation shows how each letter is formed.