The Bell Awards blog tour: Talk (ages 2-6)

I love sharing picture books with children of all ages, but they are especially magical for young children, inviting them into the rich world of books long before they can read. I’m thrilled to announce a new award that recognizes this special role of picture books.

The Bell Awards are specifically designed to help parents, caregivers, and librarians find wonderful picture books that support early literacy development in young children. They focus on five essential early literacy practices:

• Reading
• Writing
• Singing
• Talking
• Playing

While the Bell Awards were developed by the Colorado Libraries for Early Literacy (CLEL), it is a nationwide award. Members of the public can nominate titles and add to the conversation on the CLEL blog. The Bell Award Blog Tour is kicking off this new award, with posts by five fantastic children’s librarians. Today I’d like to focus how talking with young children as you read can help develop their early literacy skills.

As I read aloud to young children, I often wonder: should I read the text straight through? Or should I stop and talk about each page? The answer is: BOTH. Mix it up! Sometimes it definitely works best to read through a book from front to back. But definitely choose a different approach at other times.

Richard Scarry’s text brilliantly encourages adults to talk with children about what they’re reading. For example, here’s a bit from the page “Toys”:

“Sometimes it is fun to play by yourself. Sometimes it is fun to play with your friends. What are your favorite toys? Do you like to play with blocks?”

I love how this starts with a concrete question that’s likely to have kids respond with one or two words (“what” type questions), but then it moves into opening up more of a discussion. As a parent, I’d want to know more about what the child likes to play, and if they see any of their favorite toys on the page. This helps children connect their concrete experience to the rich world on the page.

With my kindergartners and first graders, I often ask them what they notice on the page. We browse through nonfiction books, looking at the pictures first. Then we’ll go back to a section that has a picture they’re interested in. I might read a small chunk, and then we’ll talk about it. These conversations are essential for bringing children into the wonderful world of books, showing them that there’s much to reading a book beyond simply decoding the words.

Here are five of my favorite books for encouraging conversations with pre-readers.

Richard Scarry’s Best Word Book Ever
by Richard Scarry
Golden Books, 1980
available at
Amazon
your local library
ages 2-6

I adore Richard Scarry’s books for the way that he encourages multiple types of reading. Perhaps on the first read through, I might try to get a sense of the story or the focus of the book. But the second time, I might start wondering about what the animals are doing. I might talk about whether we do the same things or have seen anything like that around our neighborhood.

Dreaming Up: A Celebration of Building 
by Christy Hale
Lee & Low, 2012
available at
Amazon
your local library
ages 3-8 

This immediately appealing book pairs young children building forts, sandcastles and more with photographs of fascinating architectural structures that mirror the children’s creations. For example, sand castles are compared to Antoni Gaudí’s soaring La Sagrada Família Basilica (Barcelona, Spain) as Hale, a Bay Area author and illustrator, celebrates children’s creativity and introduces young readers to amazing buildings from around the world.

Actual Size
by Steve Jenkins
Houghton Mifflin, 2004
available at
Amazon
your local library
ages 3-8

Steve Jenkins captures the size, texture and color of creatures with his vibrant torn-paper collages in his oversized book, Actual Size. Be prepared for plenty of “Wow!”s and “Look at that!” as you share this with your children. “Mom, did you know that a Siberian tiger weighs up to 700 pounds?!!” “And what about the African elephant? It weighs up to 14,000 pounds!” On each spread, Jenkins shows either the full animal or a piece of the animal. So viewers hold an elephant’s foot in their lap or watch as a 7-pound, 36-inch goliath frog leaps across the page. This book captures readers’ attention with simple design, stunning artwork and fascinating facts.

Scholastic Discover More: Animal Babies 
by Andrea Pinnington
Scholastic, 2012
available at
Amazon
your local library
ages 4-8

With bright design, colorful photographs, interesting sidebars and basic diagrams, Scholastic’s new nonfiction series introduces young readers to a range of topics. Animal Babies includes sections on hatching, metamorphosis, getting around and survival strategies. Large headings and short sentences make this a good choice for new readers trying out nonfiction.

ZooBorns! Zoo Babies from Around the World 
by Andrew Bleiman and Chris Eastland
Beach Lane / Simon and Schuster, 2012
available at
Amazon
your local library
ages 3-8

Utterly adorable photographs of newborn animals will bring “ooohs” and “ahhs,” but the clear text provides interesting information on animals ranging from an Asian elephant to the tawny frogmouth (a bird with a very large mouth).

Those are my picks of some of my favorite books for the pre-reader crowd that model talking. Do you have favorites? If you've got favorites that have been published in 2013, you should absolutely nominate them for the Bell Awards! A few bits of info for participating:

• Access the form to nominate titles here
• View current nominations in all five practice categories here
• Get more info about the award criteria here

Don't forget to follow the rest of the Bell Awards Blog Tour all this week by visiting the following blogs:

• The Show Me Librarian (Monday)
• Jbrary (Wednesday)
• LibLaura5 (Thursday)
• Future Librarian Superhero (Friday)

Picture books can create a sense of wonder in a young child. Pause to let them sink into a picture. Ask them about what they’re noticing. With young children, perhaps you might focus on talking about the names for different things. But also include some open-ended questions. Stretch out their attention span and help them express themselves. Little kids notice so many things and wonder about so much.

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©2013 Mary Ann Scheuer, Great Kid Books