8 Tips to Incorporate During Story Time
Reading is a wonderfully enriching and educational activity for children of all ages. Engaging in book reading with your child has countless benefits including exposure to rich vocabulary and development of word and print awareness. Many children’s books with predictable patterns or rhyming, like the classic Dr. Seuss books, also offer an abundance of opportunities to practice early phonological awareness skills like rhyming and syllable segmentation.
Story time can be far more than the passive exercise of reading aloud to your child while he or she listens quietly. Excite your child’s love for reading by encouraging his or her active participation in the reading process! Such participation can occur far before your child is an independent reader. Simple additions to your story-telling routine can add variety and enthusiasm to story time while promoting crucial phonological awareness skills and fostering a lifetime love of reading:
Pause frequently to encourage your child to ask questions, point to pictures on the page, or take a turn “reading” themselves
Point to pictures and ask questions, e.g., Point to a picture of a wolf and say, “who’s that?” Point to the house in the forest and ask, “where are they?”
Make comments about what you are reading, e.g., “Wow look at the size of that castle!” “That girl is really brave climbing up that tree all by herself.”
Encourage your child to tell his or her own story using the pictures in the book, e.g., “It’s your turn to tell me a story! Let’s look at the pictures and see what we can come up with.”
Make predictions, e.g., “I wonder what Brown Bear is going to see next? What do you think?”
Compare and contrast, e.g., “That boy looks like the boy we read about last week!” “That pumpkin looks different than the pumpkins we see at Halloween. This one is purple, but what color are our Halloween pumpkins?”
Have fun with words and rhyming, e.g., While reading a Dr. Seuss book, point out words that rhyme and add more rhyming words while encouraging your child to rhyme as well
Mix it up! Create your own story with wordless picture books or change the ending of a well-loved story to keep your child guessing
The possibilities are truly endless!
Looking for ideas for a fun series to practice active reading with your child? Check out “The Bear Books” by Karma Wilson. This entertaining and clever series provides excellent opportunities to encourage active reading participation, and you and your child are bound to love Bear and his woodland friends!