For the past few years, Jen and Naomi have been on Skokie School District 69's Play Based Assessment Team. As part of an early childhood diagnostic team, we often find ourselves recommending that parents read to their young children as a way to increase child vocabulary and language. Many times, we have had parents respond "my child doesn't really like books."
At Speech Language Literacy Lab, we have over 20 years experience working with students with a range of language abilities, including students with severe needs. In all this time, we have NEVER found a child who truly did not like books IF and WHEN we choose the right books and adapted how we interact with the book. All children benefit from the human interaction that book reading provides. When parents respond that kids "don't like books," we need to provide parent coaching so that book interactions become part of a family daily routine.
At SL3, we engage young children with books by choosing the right book, by conversing with children during reading, and by adapting books.
Here are some of things that we look for in choosing a good book:
1. Number of Words in a Sentence: How many words are in the average sentence of the child? Choose books that have sentences that are 3-4 words longer than this. If the sentences are longer, chances are the child will walk away from the book. It's too hard!
2. Rhyme and Repetition: Books that contain carrier phrase repetitive sentences are often highly motivating for our children with lower verbal skills. The repetition allows children to predict what will come next, and easily participate in book reading, which creates an experience that is highly engaging.
3. Interactive books: For our children who struggle to maintain attention, we find that books with lift-the flaps help to keep children focused. We read sentences, and ask children to predict what's under the flaps. In order to make a good prediction, children have to maintain attention to what we say during book reading.
Once we have the right book, we need to keep children engaged with the book. We coach parents: Don't present books like a lecture. Think of the book as a way to start a conversation with your child. Here are some of the ways we interact with children will reading:
1. Teach vocabulary: When reading, pick 2-3 words that you think the child doesn't know, then teach these word! Have the child say the word. Then, give an example of the word. Then, give a non-example. Then, say the vocabulary word again.
It looks like this: "This is a tiger. You say "tiger." (child says tiger). Tigers have stripes. . Oh look, is this a tiger (pointing to an elephant)? No. This animal has no stripes. Here's the tiger."
2. Limit "quiz" questions and increase "what next" questions: Too often, we see parents asking children "What's this? What's this?" while reading. This turns the reading experience into a test, rather than an enjoyable experience. If you want to quiz, first teach (see #1). A better question is "what will happen next?" Encourage children to make a guess!
3. Read the same book many times: Every time adults read the same book, we help children review vocabulary words. It may feel repetitive and boring for us adults, but repeated readings are one of the best way to help children improve their language skills.
For most children, choosing the right book and opening a dialogue about the book will be enough to keep children engaged. For some of our children with autism and other developmental disabilities, we need to go a step further to help the children interact with the book.
Here are some of the ways that we adapt books:
1. Add Velcro pictures: As mentioned earlier, books are a great way to build vocabulary. However, we also want to create a dialogue using the book. For children who can not yet repeat an adult to learn new words, we want to give them another way to communicate. At SL3, we choose target vocabulary words and create small Boardmaker pictures for the targets. Then, we velcro the pictures to the book. We can use the similar vocabulary techniques as described above, but we give children pictures to respond. We can vary how difficult this is. For example, we can just have children match picture to picture, we can give children an array of 2-3 pictures to match, or we can ask a question and have children pick the right picture. This does take a bit of time to prepare, so we encourage schools to create "lending libraries" with adapted books for parents to check out.
2. Change the words to make the sentences repetitive, and then "read" by making the words into a song: For our children with autism, we find that we can often best keep their attention through music. We will change the words on the page to make them repetitive and then read the words in a highly sing-song manner. Here is an example of how this might sound/look.
At SL3, books are part of every early childhood session. We believe books are one of the best ways to teach children about the world.
Unlike watching TV or playing a video game, the act of sitting and listening to a story also builds closed attention skills. As parents and teachers, we can help children find success with stories in order to create children who love books.
We've created a wish list of our favorite books on Amazon.com. What are your favorite books for early childhood?