Year 2 English articles

In today’s fast-paced world, finding quality time to connect with our children can be a challenge. One of the most enriching ways for father-figures to bond with their kids while fostering their development is through shared reading, so here are our top picks for reading with Dad!

Comedy is often an underrated learning tool. It can encourage your child to be creative, express their individuality and help them engage in reading, writing and performance. Encourage your child’s inner comedian with these tips from stand-up comedian, children’s author and comedy writer Steven Vinacour.

Whether you're taking your child out of school for a period, setting out on your home education journey or simply looking for extra activities to boost your child's learning, here's why the daily learning programme could be the right fit for you...

Our children's generation have the opportunity to change the world for the better, becoming guardians of our planet and promoting equity and social justice. Help them understand the role they will play in protecting people and environment and show them that every one of us can make a difference with this selection of inspiring, positive kids' books about activism and activists.

Biographies and autobiographies bring the lives of influential people to life for young children, highlighting the role exceptional individuals have played in our shared history. Introduce your child to the world's greatest artists, activists, scientists, inventors and humanitarians with books aimed at every age group. Each biography and autobiography is bursting with anecdotes, imagery and information, sure to inspire young people to follow their own dreams and aspirations.

In the past children were often discouraged from reading graphic novels because they weren’t seen as ‘real’ books but, in fact, the vocabulary, storylines and humour are highly sophisticated and offer reluctant readers a brilliant introduction to the world of books. Children’s book expert and founder of children’s book review platform Toppsta, Georgina Atwell, picks 10 of the best to capture children’s imagination.

Looking for some quick and easy learning activities to do with your child? In our extract from Five Minute Mum: Time For School, parent and best-selling author Daisy Upton (AKA Five Minute Mum) introduces you to simple, fun five-minute games to support Reception and Key Stage 1 children through their first years at school.

Once you’ve encouraged your child's love of stories and boosted their confidence in their reading skills, it’s time to develop those strategies which really make your child ‘a reader’.

Whether your child is just learning to read and print letters or looking for ways to put their creative writing skills to the test, we've rounded up some fantastic resources to help them practise phonics, grammar, story-writing and comic-creating at home. Plus there are loads of different ways to connect with authors and listen to stories.

Great ideas for keeping your child engaged with reading and broadening their taste in books.

Learning to read is a complex task and it's common for children to come up against "reading barriers". Parent and teacher Alex Quigley, author of Closing the Reading Gap, suggests ways you can help your child overcome difficulties at home.

In this day and age, we may be spending more time indoors but thanks to our laptops and devices we can let the world come to us instead – take a trip round Frida Kahlo’s kitchen, share some chocolate cake with Michael Rosen and journey to the International Space Station with our pick of 50 of the best virtual trips and educational experiences. By Hetty Walton

With KS1 SATs on the horizon, not to mention the step up to KS3 at the end of the year, we asked primary-school teacher, education writer and mum of three Phoebe Duffy to highlight the key skills to focus on with your Year 2 child.

Understand how to punctuate exclamation sentences and how to communicate sudden and strong emotion in writing with our parents' guide to exclamation marks.

Not all children take to books easily. If your child finds reading tricky, read our guide to the problems they might be having.

Whether you're on the move or at home, a great activity book offers hours of screen-free learning and fun. Crosswords, maths challenges, mystery solving and code writing are all covered in our best activity books for kids picks. We can't guarantee you won't want to help out with the puzzling, though!

A cunning fox, a haunted room, a terrifying cat, a broken time machine and a princess who fights crime make these short, accessible chapter books perfect for building young readers' confidence.

Lonely rainclouds, tea-drinking dogs, dastardly dragons and grumpy giants make this selection for six year olds the perfect choice for developing readers. The illustrations are wonderful and there isn't too much text, so these books are perfect for a first foray into the world of independent reading.

We could tell you that reading and – even better – learning poetry by heart, will do wonders for your child’s memory, vocabulary and writing. We could tell you that reading and reciting poetry is now a key part of the National Curriculum. Or we could simply say that reading a brilliant poem might give your child a great deal of pleasure. Here are some of the best children’s collections out there, chosen by poet Emma Harding.