Blog Week of September 20
(Teachers please tell your parents about this blog series. It will encourage quality reading at home.)
In my blog last week, I gave you my definition for reading: “Reading is interacting with the printed page to make meaning.” The key word is interacting. And the interaction comes from the children’s own past experiences Young children need to interact if they are to find meaning. Reading is not a passive act. We must set up connections between the child and the story so they can see its meaning in their own lives.
Remember the “gist” explanation from last week? The gist is how expert readers function, they find the meaning, the key idea. Don’t let your beginning reader get bogged down in the words or sounds. After they check out the sounds take them back to the meaning.
The more children live in language rich environments, the better their chances of becoming successful users of language and fluent readers themselves. “Tell me a story,” is one of the most deeply rooted human requests. Some of our fondest memories are of family times when we sat together during and after great food and told each other stories. Often the most memorable ones were those we had heard before, and yet we wanted to tell them and hear them over and over. Good stories engender excitement, questions, humor and sadness, understandings that lead us back to our own lives.
So it is with young children also. They need rich background knowledge to prepare them for the formal language instruction that comes later in school. The story readers who use our program are parents, relatives, school volunteers and teachers. They are all moving children to find meaning in language. Children become literate by experiencing reading.
The story highlighted today, Song of the Swallows by Leo Politi, is one of 20 award winning children’s books that we have put into 4MAT instructional designs for parents and teachers to use to read to young children.
It is available in paperback from Amazon for under $4.00 or at your local library.
“Song of the Swallows, which won the Caldecott Medal when it was first published in 1948, was written and illustrated by Leo Politi, one of Los Angeles' most beloved artists. It tells the famous story of the yearly return of the swallows to the Mission San Juan Capistrano through the eyes of a small child. Julian, the bell ringer of the Mission, tells Juan, a young boy who also lives at the Mission, the story of the swallows and how–without anyone really knowing why or how–they return each year from their winter home in South America to San Juan Capistrano in California. Thrilled by the story, Juan makes his own small garden in the hope that at least one family of swallows will nest there when they return.
This delightful book also includes the music and lyrics for "La Golondrina," a song about the swallows that Politi composed himself, and Spanish phrases are sprinkled throughout the story. This book provides a delightful introduction for young children California's centuries-old Latino heritage and Mission culture.” –From Amazon.com description.
The concept I chose for this story is: All living things are special and need care and respect.
Here is the 4MAT Cycle of 8 steps for reading this book for optimal meaning.
step 1: Begin the story session by having the child or children make mask or a drawing of their favorite animal and share the visual with siblings, friends, classmates or friendly adults and tell why that animal is their special favorite.
step 2: Have the child list things we do for our animal friends that show we care about them. It would be especially helpful if the child could interview someone with a beloved pet to add their own research to the list.
step 3: Have the child draw a picture of the place their animal friend likes the best, the place where he or she is most comfortable and happy.
step 4: Read the story together.
step 5: Ask the following questions and let the child find the answers in the book:
- What time of year do the swallows leave?
- What time of year to they return?
- How did Juan prepare for their return?
- What did Juan hope would happen in his own garden?
- Tell three things the gardener, Julian, taught him
Answers: leave end of summer, return in the Spring, worked in his garden, hoped the swallows would choose his garden, Julian told Juan how the Mission was built, about the swallows leaving and returning, that wherever the swallows go they find flowers and fresh water and people who welcome them and love them, and that perhaps the swallows had encountered a storm on the day of their return.
step 6: Send the child or children to the Web to research the swallows of Capistrano, see their pictures and take a virtual flight.
step 7: Children will share what they learned with members of their own family or friends who have not experienced the story and seen the Web visuals.
step 8: Have the children assume the persona of their favorite animal with the mask if they made one and say three things about how they need to be cared for.
Next week I will take you through a complete learning cycle of another famous children’s story, Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey, one of my personal all time favorites. Check out my complete 4MAT Learning Cycle and then read another award winning story to a special child or two.
