Literacy for Parents

Research shows that parental/carer involvement in a child’s education is more important than anything else in helping them fulfil their potential. As a community, BMS places a high value on its partnership with parents and carers and emphasises our working together in the best interest of every child. The use of bedrock at BMS in yr 7 or our supra-curriculum at Year 11/post16 are aimed at developing student fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension of text. These are all things that can also be focused on at home by parents/carers with their children.

Indeed, it has been found that parents who talk to their children about books, TV programs and films help to keep their children interested in reading. Having books, newspapers and magazines around at home also makes a difference in how interested children are in reading. Such books do not need to be text-heavy, for example, picture books in French or Spanish, depending on which language they will be learning, will aid student progress as would access to Horrible Histories or the Murderous Maths series. Additionally, the process can take just ten minutes a day by parents skimming through a text with their child to find a specific piece of information (read through a piece of text quickly to find out what the main idea is).

A big impact on a child’s literacy can be made by making 20 minutes a day to read. This includes independent reading as well as encouraging an older child to read aloud to younger children or to listen to an adult reading. The BMS weekly CDC session is based on this premise of an adult reading aloud, adding expression to the text, and students following the text with a ruler in the book. Thereby, allowing the student to associate what the word looks like with its sound and for difficult words to be looked up in dictionaries and their meaning discussed. Dual language books can be an ideal way to facilitate discussion around topical issues if English is not a family first language. For a more creative activity, making a scrapbook with a child about their favourite star or sports team by letting them cut pictures out of magazines and papers and write their own captions will help to develop their literacy.