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5. Make reading meaningful

Story lines are used that the child can easily relate to their personal experience. (The Lost Keys book features a topic on which most of us have spent large amounts of our personal time!) It also illustrates the key point of reading: that we read to understand a story, then think about it and finally relate it to something we ourselves know about.

Use the following strategies to help your child to understand the text.

• Use a standard question set such as:
  

  Who is in the story?	What is the main event?
  Where does the story take place?	What happens in the end?
  What happens in the story?	What do you think about the story — do you like it or not?

• Try finding a key word in the story that conveys meaning, and use this word to make simple sentences relating to the illustration. For example, where the word "bath" is used in A Big Mess, using the word bath, say "What is in the bath?"; "Water and bubbles are in the bath."; "Where is the bath?"; "It is in the bathroom."; "Don’s boat is in the bath"; "Don is wet!"
• Use the Word Cards to record simple ideas right from the start to demonstrate that the written word is used to convey meaning. The book Going on a Picnic provides a good example — get your child to make the simple sentence: "I want a biscuit." Follow this by getting a biscuit. This will allow him to use the written word to convey a request before he can write or spell, and demonstrates the benefit of using text to convey meaning in a simple and practical way.