This is a list of things you may choose to do to help build your students reading and writing skills. They are designed to make reading and writing part of ordinary life.
- Do the code cracker or target from the daily the paper
- Talk about what you are reading and encourage students to do the same
- Get your son or daughter to write the shopping list
- Get your children to write the ingredients and instructions from a television cooking show that you watch together. Then this to try and make the food.
- Start work on a family history and ask your son and daughter to interview an older family member about their life.
- Write menus and party invitations for family occasions.
- Get your students to show you what TEXAS paragraphs are.
- Read the newspaper together and discuss your opinions with your son or daughter. Encourage them to articulate opinions with evidence
- Write letters of complaint or praise to restaurants or leisure places you have visited as a family.
- Encourage your students to keep diaries especially when on holiday or travelling.
- Encourage your students to organise the family photo albums and include captions. These could be digital or hardcopy albums.
- Take turns reading a chapter from a novel as a family. Harry Potter is great for this.
- Watch films together and discuss them.
- Wherever you can explore how various people might feel about it.
- Play games: Scrabble, Bananagram, Pictionary, Boggle, Balderdash, Taboo, Dingbats, charades
- Tell jokes to each other.
- Have a competition to see which family member can learn a poem or some song lyrics off by heart first.
- Have a competition to come up with the most interesting new word of the day
- Join the local library and make regular visits as a family.
- Enrol in a night class and learn a new language as a family.