As an English teacher and the mother of a boy in reception class, I know how hard it can be to strike the balance between supporting your child – and their teacher – with their early learning and becoming the sort of scary, deranged tiger-Mummy that teachers dread meeting on consultation days. Here are just 5 things – as both a mother and a teacher –  that I have found to be useful:

1. Don’t ‘help them with their reading’

Never ask your child to sit down and ‘do his/her reading with you’. This is likely to engender the same emotional response as someone asking me to sit through 90 minutes of grown men passing a ball back and forth to each other’s feet, as well as the same slim chance of it actually happening. The main thing wrong with this approach is that it treats reading as if it…