Right away: your baby will enjoy the sound of your voice as you read and point at the pictures. Reading favourite stories again and again, and repeating phrases, helps young children to develop language. Attention spans are short, so be prepared for lots of 10-minute reading sessions and don't worry if your child doesn't respond to a particular book or only wants to look at one picture.

Children who are familiar with a wide range of books and stories and used to spending time focusing quietly on a book are at an advantage when they start nursery or school.

Have as many books as you can at home to choose from (ask for books for presents, use the library and try charity shops and car boot sales as well as buying new). Don't forget you are entitled to three packs of books for your child from the Bookstart programme (at seven months, 18 months and three years).

Ideas and resources to help you share books at home can be found at

www.literacytrust.org.uk/familyreading

There has always been much debate about how best to teach children to read. The Rose Review of 2006 recommended that children need to learn to recognise individual words (decoding skills) and understand what they are reading (comprehension skills). From September 2007 state primary schools in England and Wales are required to teach phonics, making sure that young children can recognise the alphabet and the sounds the letters and their blends make.

They are taught the sounds that correspond to individual letters or groups of letters, then learn to blend them to sound out and then read words. The next step is reading simple sentences while still reinforcing the sound-letter work, and reading phonically decodable books with simple text while continuing to learn more complex or tricky words.

Your child's teacher might send home a sounds book or letter cards which teach sounds that correspond to letters. They might also be sent home with a story book, which you would be asked to share with the child. At this stage, it doesn't matter if your child can't read the words it's more important to enjoy the book together, talking about the pictures, retelling the story, anticipating what might happen next.

Some teachers don't use books in teaching reading for the first half term of the Reception year because they concentrate on building phonic skills, others use books with no words, or very few words.

As your child's phonic knowledge increases (see below, My child seems to be taking ages to learn to read) the focus shifts from learning to read to reading to learn. Once they can decode words, the teacher is more concerned with making sure they understand what the text is about.

As well as learning the technical skills of reading, children should encounter books and stories at nursery or school in many other ways. Literacy, which includes reading, writing, speaking and listening, is the most obvious opportunity (but not the only one) for introducing children to whole books. This happens through listening to stories and sharing and talking about all kinds of story books. Exposure to stories can be linked with writing and other activities such as art, science experiments, growing things etc.

Guided reading, where an adult reads with children in small groups or individually (usually not more than one individual session a week) is regularly used in schools an important part of building reading fluency and is often linked to writing or other activities. It is sometimes organised at the beginning of the school day and parents/carers might stay to help. Guided reading may have started in early years, talking with the teacher about the illustrations and learning to handle books, in the same way that you might do at home.

Keep sharing lots of books with your children, reading aloud and talking about books. Let them see you and other family members enjoying books. Teachers also use other kinds of texts around the classroom (posters, labels, captions on displays) for children to practise reading. You can use labels at home and encourage recognition of written signs or names on shop fronts when out shopping, for example.

Talk to the teacher if you aren't sure how best to support what goes on in school.

Children make connections between sound, story and illustration by looking at a wide range of other books, mostly at the pictures. It's important that you keep doing this with them and it won't confuse them. Being encouraged to discuss pictures and context is all part of the value and pleasure of reading. Hearing lots of stories helps so they understand how stories are shaped.

Introduce as many new books to children as you can, encourage them to choose from a selection. Talk about the story before you read a book together rather than stopping and talk so much that the child loses track of the story.

It's common to spend between one and two weeks doing topic work related to a story book. A close reading of a text followed by writing something on the same model is a common pattern throughout primary school. Teachers can get a lot of topic work out of a picture book: stories can inspire work in science, geography, history, RE, dance, drama, music and so on.

A book can come up several times in the course of a term especially if it involves long-term work like planting a garden or working towards a performance or special assembly. It shouldn't be the only book that the child encounters: most schools have a selection of books in the classroom for children to choose from.

Every child learns to read at a different pace. It can take up to the end of Year 2 for some children to master the word level of the synthetic phonics system while others do it early in the Reception year or at nursery. Most schools have a system for identifying and giving extra support to children who have unusual difficulty learning to read.

Reading requires a child to do three things at once: associate a symbol with a sound (which they can do if they can name a picture of anything), blend phonemes together to produce words (which they can do if they have learned to talk) and understand what they read. Their potential level of understanding of text is at the same level as their potential level of understanding of speech. So developing their speaking and listening skills at the same time as the phonics work is important and this is something else you can help with at home.

Also, there is a range of opinions about whether teachers should mix other learning strategies (such as context) with a phonics programme. Ask your child's school what the policy is on this.

Because children see details in illustration that adults miss and respond to the overall atmosphere of a picture book, for example, it's hard to tell when something is going to be frightening. Children might find the same book funny one day and frightening another. Books and stories are part of our private worlds; even when they are older, children might not be able to articulate how a particular book affected them.

Certain traditional story ingredients such as ghosts, monsters and cruel adults are potentially frightening in themselves and this is part of the fun of the story for some children. Many picture books set up a frightening atmosphere and then use humour or show the small creatures overcoming the big to turn the scary situation around. Others deal with wider issues such as death, war or global catastrophe and are intended for a readership of up to seven or older.

Children's life experience is expanding rapidly as they move from nursery to primary school. They are ready for more sophisticated stories in picture books, some of which feature the everyday challenges they might face as they start school, make new friends and encounter new areas of learning. Some books deal with these real-life topics in a way that allows children to recognise themselves, their families and their daily routines. But their lives can seem more difficult and tiring as well as more exciting and they might want certain books at home that aren't in any way associated with school.

At this age they are enjoying more complex story structures (such as alternative endings) and more subtle plot development and answers to questions. The best books provide plenty for children to notice, enjoy and talk about, with more to be gained from repeated readings.

By all means use audio books sometimes, but listen to them with your children (don't make it something they always do alone on an MP3 player) and talk about which recordings are good and why. Children nearly always enjoy the individual attention and comfort that storytelling by a parent, carer or trusted adult brings, whatever you feel your voice might sound like.

To enjoy reading aloud yourself, the key is more work rather than less. Choose a story you like, read it in advance, look for twists and turns and ways to build suspense or change the speed of reading. Think about reading aloud a range of kinds of texts; including poetry (try some funny poetry).

Deviate from the story, leave out bits that don't work or simplify difficult words in advance. See if you can introduce different voices or accents. You won't want to create too much excitement at bedtime so find other times of the day when a more lively reading aloud session might work for you (on weekend mornings for example) so you can play around with props, toys, movement, location and getting children to join in.

We are never too old to be read to; that's why audio books and Radio 4's Book at Bedtime are so popular. It's also good for older children to take turns reading aloud themselves (they all start to read by reading aloud, but once they become silent readers there is less opportunity to practice) and enjoy having an audience that they feel comfortable with. This is good for their speaking skills. It's also a way of making sure they keep enjoying books at a time when there is lots of competition for their attention.

You can choose books to read aloud that are slightly too long or complex for the children to read for themselves, so they can enjoy being stretched by the story. You can keep this up well into secondary school.

Does he ever see other members of the family just sitting, reading a book? So often we expect children to do things that we feel are 'good for them', but that we don't make time to do ourselves.

He might be getting messages from his friends that reading is not an acceptable way to spend his time. He needs to see adults and older children or teenagers enjoying reading for themselves, not necessarily talking about how good reading is for you.

There is so much exciting literature for this 10-plus age group and such a wide range (including funny books, thrillers that build up tension, books that discuss serious issues, non-fiction packed with facts and fantasy stories about exciting alternative worlds) that it should be possible to find books that your son will like. If you can, find one of the many books for this age group that also appeal to adults and read it alongside him. Books that encourage engagement with others such as quiz books or fact-packed books might work well.

Boys like an element of competition so find out if his school or your local library runs book quizzes (once he's in secondary school, he'll be able to take part in the Kids Lit Quiz www.kidslitquiz.com) or encourage him to sign up for the Summer Reading Challenge in public libraries. If you have younger children or other young friends and relatives, get him to read aloud to them.

The crucial thing is for him to feel that reading is cool, enjoyable and not that unusual a thing to do. Leave graphic novels in the toilet; take him to films that are based on books, always take magazines and books on journeys. Try and encourage keener family readers to be visible, in a casual sort of way when they read. Remember too that talking with your child is at least as important as reading with them, discussion and encouraging your child to test his opinions will keep his mind open to new experiences and ideas including reading!

Throughout primary school your child's reading progress will be assessed informally and formally. There is a reading element in the English Sats (national tests), taken at the end of key stage 1, key stage 2 and key stage 3 (at ages seven, 11 and 14). At the end of KS1 the teacher will assess your child's ability to recognise words (decoding skills) noting the strategies they use, and their understanding of simple fiction and non fiction texts.

At KS2 and KS3 the emphasis is on comprehension skills: pupils have to independently read and understand an age-appropriate piece of text, interpret some of the ideas in the text and comment on the way it has been written.

Most children would be expected to achieve Level 2 at KS1, Level 4 at KS2 and Level 5+ at KS3. When you get the test results, you will be told your child's reading level as well as their overall test result (combined with writing/ speaking and listening). Some primary schools will use additional reading tests, usually at the start of Year 6, to determine a pupil's reading age.

This information is sent to your child's secondary school, which may also assess pupils' reading at the start of the school year. It all helps the school to make your child is working at the correct level and receives support for any reading problems.

Children who have not attained a Level 4 in reading will get appropriate extra support at secondary school. You can find out more from your child's English teacher and /or the learning support team.

Your main job will be, again, to try and ensure that your child enjoys whatever reading he or she does at home and encounters as wide a range or reading materials as possible. It's also really important not to convey anxiety to your child about his or her reading level. SATS are notoriously blunt measuring instruments and the levels should not be regarded as a reflection of a child's intelligence. Just be as encouraging as you can.

There are so many good books for this age group that even the most avid list-maker could not keep track.

Spinebreakers is Penguin's pioneering online book community, run exclusively by teenagers aged 13-18. The site hosts an amazing range of multi-media content, including video and audio reviews, all geared toward stimulating reading. Also, check out the winning and shortlisted titles for the Booktrust Teenage Prize and the top age group for the Nestle Smarties Prize www.booktrust.org.uk, also the Carnegie Medal www.carnegiegreenaway.org.uk. Their shortlists contain much of the best recent fiction. Browsing your local bookshop and library with your child can often reveal new titles. www.cool-reads.co.uk, a site run by teenagers for teenagers, has an archive of book suggestions for 10 to 15-year-olds. Also ask your school librarian he or she will be only too happy to shower you with recommendations.