Once your child has had some practice in putting together sounds to make meaningful words, and has practised writing whole words (see Books 8 and 9 of this series), they can begin reading and understanding simple sentences.

In Excel English Early Skills: Reading for Comprehension, your child will:

• practise writing simple words from pictures
• learn to read simple sentences and understand their meaning
• start to develop comprehension skills by reading simple short stories

You will need to work actively with your child for each activity so they understand what they are expected to do on each page. Selected answers are provided at the back of the book to help your child interpret the pictures. Your child will also need to learn some basic 'sight words' to understand the sentences in this book. A list of these words is provided at the back of the book. To help your child trace over and write letters, see our reference page at the back of the book.