Blog, Week of October 20
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”. 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 right back to the meaning. Use Dialogue Reading This is a technique described by Whitehurst in his research on long-term effects of an emergent literacy intervention in Head Start. (1994) It is a technique that switches the roles of adult and child in reading. After reading the story, have the child retell it back to you. You become the listener. Ask questions appropriate to the child’s level of knowledge and encourage him or her to say more and use more advanced language in successive readings of the book. Dialogic reading increases the rate of language development in youngsters. The children love the reversal of roles and will amaze you as they retell the stories. This book is especially important in advancing children’s language skills. Frederick by Leo Lionni The Concept I have Chosen: The human heart needs more than food and shelter to be happy. “I will always love Frederick! He is one of my childhood "teachers" who gave me permission to dream and think warm thoughts. He shows the power of heart and mind together - and that above all things it is okay to be yourself, and to be "different." –Reader’s comment in Amazon Frederick is an artistic and imaginative little mouse. While his family gathers food for the winter,
Activity 1: Have the child or the children share a happy memory. Activity 2: Help the children list the characteristics of happy memories. Feelings, colors, tastes, smells, friendships, newness, hugs, excitement Activity 3: Have the children write a few words that describe happy moments and then a draw picture of one of them. Activity 4: Read the story together. Activity 5: In this activity the children become Frederick. Use notebooks or journals, or you could even have the child do this orally.
Frederick sits around observing. The other mice criticize him for being lazy, but Frederick insists that what he's doing is important - he's collecting words and colors. When winter finally comes, of course, the food Frederick's family gathered sustains them. But eventually the food runs out and it is Frederick's vivid memories of the colors of spring, as well as his poems and stories, that take the other mice's minds off their troubles and get them through the winter.
Have the child share the colors and words he or she has selected.If you are working with a small group, be sure they write down each other’s ideas as well as their own during the sharing time.
Activity 6: Have them draw a picture of what they might have described to the mice in the story if they had been Frederick. What scene would they have chosen to cheer up their fellow mice when they were all cold and hungry? Have them then write a poem to go with their story.
Activity 7: Have the child or children share their favorite words and colors with another child or children or interested adults.
Activity 8: Find a local poetry reading, the younger the poet(s) the better and take the child or children. Discuss the possibility that they are poets too. On the way home ask them what it feels like to be a poet.
“I don't think there's a better book about the importance of nurturing the imagination than Frederick. When Lionni first wrote it, in 1966, it became an instant classic. Today it's not just a great children's book, it's a crucial one.” –Amazon Review
