Project
EASE
Early
Access to Success in Education
A
Parent-Child Program
2. Once Upon A Time: A Storybook Unit
Background Information for Parents
If there was one single piece of advice for helping your child become a good reader, it would have to be reading to them. Study after study, time after time, research has shown that good readers usually had a parent or adult read to them on a regular basis.
Why is reading to your child important? The exact connection is not entirely clear, but research shows that when children hear stories read to them they store up the words they heard, they build an understanding of what stories are, and they extend their thinking about the world. Imagine if you never talked with your child and they never heard language spoken. How would they know how to speak? Children who haven't heard stories have a great disadvantage when they become readers, because they do not have a rich treasury of experiences of what stories are like.
What do children learn when they hear stories? When a child has stories read to them it is like going to the bank. Every time they learn something about stories it goes into a savings account which they can draw upon when they become readers. Every time they hear a story, they start to get a sense of how stories are constructed. They learn that stories are often about characters who have problems and try to solve them. Over time, after hearing many stories read and reread, they begin to store up knowledge about stories in general. They can even make up their own stories which will match the same pattern as the stories they have heard.
Another important benefit from hearing stories is the language that stories use. Stories contain words and have ways of saying things that are different from the way in which we talk everyday. They use special words and they have longer sentences which creates a more involved language. Hearing the language of stories helps children prepare for the language they will encounter inside a book when they become readers.
Parents meet with a Project EASE teacher who gives them background information on the role reading books play in literacy development of young children by building language skills, strengthening comprehension skills, and extending their thinking beyond the here and now.
Concepts Covered:
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Children learn how stories are structured implicitly by listening to stories read to them.
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Children are introduced to rare words, longer and more complex sentences, and distant concepts.
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Children can extend their thinking by discussing the book as it is read. The best discussions extend their thinking and go beyond the literal story events.
Parents engage in a one-on-one activity with their child, such as:
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Parents observe a story read to a group of students by the Project EASE teacher to see how a book can be used as a language opportunity and as a springboard for discussion.
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Parents and children jointly make their own version of the gingerbread house which was the setting of the story.
Children bring home a structured book activity to do at home each week for three weeks. The activity includes a specific book which models the desired language interaction, a scripted set of directions that guides parents, a follow up art activity, and an evaluation sheet. Each book has a specific story structure element that gives parents an opportunity to extend the story. The selected books have strong central characters, well defined goals, interesting conflict between characters, and story problems that generate extended discussions between parent and child. Parents are asked to engage their children in the story by asking inferences about the characters and events.
Lesser,
R. (1990). Hansel and Gretel. New York: Sandcastle Books.
DePaola,T.
(1989). The art lesson. New York: Sandcastle Books.
Henkes,
K. (1986). A weekend with Wendell. New York: Mulberry Books.
Wadell,
M. (1988). Can't you sleep Little Bear? Cambridge, MA:
Candlewick.