Storytime

You’ve heard it over and over again: Reading to your children is the best way to help them achieve academic success. This is because reading stories to your children promotes vocabulary development, language growth, and the love of reading, all of which are necessary for school success.  But are some books better than others?  An article titled “Enhancing Emerging Literacy in a Language Preschool” (Watson, Layton, Pierce, Abraham, 1994) outlines characteristics to look for when choosing a book to share with your child.  

First, select books that use interesting language features such as rhythm and rhyme. Of course, Dr. Seuss’ stories are well known for their interesting language patterns, but there are others that are just as engaging such as Sandra Boynton’s “Horns to Toes,”  Bill Martin, Jr.’s “Brown Bear, Brown Bear,” and Eric Carle’s “Very Hungry Caterpillar.” Second, choose books that do not overwhelm your child with an extensive amount of text.  Books with limited text and pictures that provide strong support for the story are usually best for helping a preschool child maintain attention and process the information.  Tomie De Paola’s “The Knight and the Dragon,” Mo Willem’s Piggy and Elephant stories, and Arnold Lobel’s Frog and Toad stories are good examples. Third, books that contain familiar themes and repetition help to facilitate many emerging pre-literacy skills.  These are stories like Bill Martin, Jr.’s “Chicka Chicka Boom Boom,” Margaret Wise Brown’s “Goodnight Moon,” and Kevin Lewis’ “Chugga Chugga Choo Choo.”

Of course, how you read the story to your child matters, too. The interaction between you and your child as you read the story can enhance your child’s comprehension of the story. This can happen in a variety of ways. For instance, you can help your son or daughter gain meaning by relating events in the story to real experiences that your son or daughter has had.  You can have your child make predictions in the story by asking, “What do you think will happen next?”  You can also ask questions about the story.  The questions you ask will depend on your child’s developmental level and can range from asking your son or daughter to point to an item in a picture to higher level questions such as, “Who is this story about?” or “Why is the firefly sad?” And, finally, be sure to acknowledge and respond to your child’s comments about the story. His or her interests may take you in a direction that you didn’t expect and taking the time to discuss those interests will make the story that much more meaningful.