Once your child has had some practice in putting together sounds to m ake 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 Co mprehension, your child will:

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

You will need to work actively with you r child for each activity so they understand what they are expected to d o 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 le arn 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 c hild trace over and write letters, see our reference page at the back of the book.