I start voluntary work at a primary school next week.

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I start next week at a primary school. My main task to begin with is to read with a group of children who are struggling. (Mainly year 1 and 2's.) I am very nervous but excited to start. I have done work experience at the same school and wanted to do more. I've never worked with younger children before only the older ones. Is there any do's and don'ts when it comes to teaching children to learn how to read, or maybe some helpful tips to know about before I start? The only feedback I got the last time I was there was that I was very helpful, but the negative thing was that I allowed some children to get too attached to me. (I'm afraid that I am too nice at times and it was something which I really struggled with when I was there. I didn't think it would be a bad thing to be kind but I need advice on that too.) If I could get some advice and tips I would be very grateful. I really want to be a teaching assistant one day so I'm trying to get as much experience as I can. All comments will be appreciated, thank you so much! :)

Basically, make sure you are using the sound that the letter makes, not the letter itself i.e. say /a/ like at the start of apple rather than the "ay" sound of an A.

Digraphs are groups of two letters that have one sound, so the word "that" would have three sounds - th, a and t.

You won't be expected to know all 44 sounds to help read with children, but it helps to know a bit about how they will be taught to blend sounds together.

I was way too kind and patient and ended up knowing save child’s whole life story yup, I learned that bit the hard way too. Don't completely stop listening to them, just find a balance.

Thestrals link to the sounds is brilliant, whatever you do don't use letter names or the sodding letterland alphabet (annie apple, bouncy Ben etc) because you can't blend from that and it really confuses some children. If you can, find out what phonics scheme the school uses, most of it is easy to find online and read up on, and different schools use different schemes so don't worry about looking silly asking. Most of it you will actually know even if you don't know the terms - for example you can read so you will know all 44 sounds when you see them, you will know all the common exception words, high frequency words etc because they are words you use every day, you just might not know that's what they are called. You don't really need to know the terms.

As for finding paid work. I started out as a lunchtime supervisor to pay my travel so I could volunteer, then just kept an eye out for a vacancy, I was a paid TA within 2 months.