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Dear Santa: 13 tried-and-tested stocking-stuffer books for preschoolers

David Kinnane · 26 November 2017 · Leave a Comment

Poor Santa! So many presents to find, for so many little people, with so little time! Luckily, we’ve been on the case, searching high and low for the best books to help stimulate preschoolers’ language development – from the Galston Rotary Giant Book Fair to the Scholastic Super Book Sale at Sydney Olympic Park.

So, for Santa and all his weary helpers out there, we are pleased to present 13 book suggestions based on what’s working well for our preschoolers in the clinic right now.

Need more book ideas? No worries, we’ve got you covered.

Ho Ho Ho!

Duck in the Truck by Jez Alborough

One of my kids’ favourite books when they were young. They could recite the whole book and loved the rhyming. Jez Alborough’s excellent illustrations add to the text with lots of movement and frivolity.

Things I Like by Anthony Browne

Anthony Browne’s books are smart, thought-provoking and beautifully illustrated. Our personal favourites are Gorilla and Piggybook, and Things I Like is great for verbs.

Night Noises written by Mem Fox and illustrated by Terry Denton

Follow the adventures of a ‘fat old dog’ Butch Aggie on a wild winter’s evening as she attempts to protect ‘nearly ninety’ Lillie Laceby, who has drifted off to sleep by the fire, from unknown people outside the house. Are they robbers?

The Carnival of the Animals by Marianne Dubuc

Watch as a carnival of wild animals transform into other animals. Lots of lovely repetitions of the verb ‘to dress’.

Look and See written and illustrated by Shane Morgan

Another book featuring animals and action words, this time Australian fauna like kangaroos, emus, dingos, and frill-necked lizards, running, jumping, howling and hopping around the country.

Bouncing by Shirley Hughes

As the title suggests, there’s lots of bouncing in this book. The illustrations help reinforce the verb and as an added bonus, the inside sleeves feature illustrations of young children acting out another 17 verbs including bending, reading, scowling, looking, smiling, counting and drinking.

Let’s Go, Baby-o! by Janet and Andrew McLean

More actions on display with the McLeans’ Let’s Go, Baby-o! We love the rhymes, in the vein of Janet and Allan Ahlberg, and the illustrations of baby, Mum and random animals demonstrating the actions including pounce, thump, flap and hop.

Kissed by the Moon by Alison Lester

Alison Lester is one of our favourite authors of books for young children. Kissed by the Moon is a beautifully illustrated, verb-packed lullaby, perfect to serenade a baby to sleep.

Flashing Fire Engines by Tony Mitton and Ant Parker

Part of Tony Mitton and Ant Parker’s Amazing Machines series. We love these books as they appeal to children who like vehicles. They also provide excellent commentary about the particular machine’s function and how people, like firefighters in this case, operate the machinery.

Also available as an audio book with lots of noise to accompany the action.

Polar Bear Night by Lauren Thompson and illustrated by Stephen Savage

Another lovely bedtime tale about an insomniac polar bear cub wandering around her arctic neighbourhood, gazing at the sleeping animals, before a shooting star show helps her to fall asleep. Another of my kids’ childhood favourites and a New York Times bestseller.

Going shopping by Sarah Garland

A patient, if slightly harried-looking mother takes her two children and dog to the supermarket. Reminds us of the Berenstain’s Inside Outside Upside Down with its few words and limited number of pictures to describe an everyday adventure.

Piglet and Mama by Margaret Wild and illustrated by Stephen Michael King

Piglet loses her Mama in the farmyard and the farm animals try to distract her from her distress with suggested activities like snoozing with the cat, chasing the donkey, and cuddling the duck, but Piglet just wants her Mama. Margaret Wild and Stephen Michael King are a winning combination.

What the sky knows by Nike Bourke and illustrated by Stella Danalis

A short-listed book for The Children’s Book Council of Australia book of the year, it explores a girl imagining what it would be like to know all the things the sky knows.

Related articles:

  • Books with verbs to level up your child’s language development: 24 of the best
  • More verb-charged books to ignite your child’s development
  • Reading with – not to – your preschoolers: how to do it better (and why)
  • 15 practical ways to help your son discover a passion for reading
  • Which books should I use in stuttering therapy with my child? Here are our favourite six kinds, with examples
 

Hi there, I’m David Kinnane.

Principal Speech Pathologist, Banter Speech & Language

Our talented team of certified practising speech pathologists provide unhurried, personalised and evidence-based speech pathology care to children and adults in the Inner West of Sydney and beyond, both in our clinic and via telehealth.

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Reading with – not to – your pre-schoolers: how to do it better (and why)

David Kinnane · 17 May 2017 · Leave a Comment

Most parents know that reading books with their kids is important. But many parents don’t know why exactly. And it’s not as if parents get issued with an instruction book about how to read books with their kids for the best language, literacy, social and academic results.

Consider this article a mini-instruction book – a cheat sheet – based on some of the latest evidence about how to get the most out of reading books with your pre-schooler.

1. Why read books with your pre-schooler?

The peer-reviewed research evidence is very clear on this:

a. Read books with your kids:

Reading books with your kids:

  • has a positive effect on later reading and maths skills;
  • increases sustained attention; and
  • reduces negative behaviours (Baker et al., 2013).

b. Read books frequently with your kids

Reading books more often with your pre-schooler increases:

  • interaction, language, and pre-literacy skills (Hill & Diamond, 2013);
  • reading, cognitive (i.e. intellectual), and numeracy skills until at least 10-11 years of age (Kalb & van Ours, 2014);
  • letter knowledge and phonological awareness (Manolitsis et al., 2013);
  • word recognition skills (Silinskas et al., 2012);
  • receptive and expressive vocabulary (Senechal; & Lefevre, 2014);
  • later literacy outcomes (Cunningham et al., 1997); and
  • self-regulation (Walker, 2014).

2. How to read books with your pre-schooler

a. Read books “with” – not “to” your pre-schoolers

Peer-reviewed evidence shows that pre-schoolers have better outcomes when they participate actively in reading (Britto et al., 2006). On the other hand, reading books in a non-interactive way does not work as well, especially for children at risk for language delays or reading problems (e.g. Dickinson & Tabors, 2001). Children do not do as well when they just sit on your lap or lie in bed half-asleep being read to or at.

Academics love to call interactive reading ‘dialogic’, which is a word that comes to us from Greek, via Old French and Middle English. In simple terms, it means we want reading to be a two-way conversation with your kids about the book, with each of you taking turns and responding to the other’s gestures, words and observations.

b. Practical tips for how to turn passive book-reading into an active conversation

  • Books are not just for bedtime, when everyone’s tired and you want your kids to settle for sleep. I love bedtime reading. But you should mix it up and read at other times too. For example, when my boys were younger, we loved to read books straight after breakfast on Sundays and then act them out in the back yard (especially books about emergencies and battles).
  • Let your child choose the book. Your child will learn more from a book if it matches his/her interests. A quick trip to the library will give you a good idea of the types of books your child likes.
  • Don’t forget about non-fiction books. Story books are great. But if your son or daughter loves dinosaurs, trucks, or trains, explore their interest! I find many young boys with language delays love books about cars and dinosaurs, for example. I had one client who loved to read about going to the dentist!
  • If your child wants to read the same book over and over, just do it!
  • Focus on what your child is looking at in the book and go at their pace.
  • You don’t need to read the book in order, or cover-to-cover. If your child loves a particular picture, spend more time there talking about it.
  • Don’t do all the talking! Hold your peace and wait for your child to say something. Say something about the book, and then be quiet for 5 seconds and wait expectantly. Give your child time to take a turn or make a comment, and then respond enthusiastically.
  • Don’t ask too many questions – especially ‘yes/no’ closed questions or ‘what’s that?’ questions. Kids (like all of us) hate being interrogated about stuff when they know you know the answer. Make comments about the book, and then simply wait expectantly. Instead of saying ‘What colour is that?’, or ‘Is he happy?’ or ‘What’s that?’, you could say ‘I like his green skin, it looks so slimy!’, or ‘I can see the frog swimming under the lily pad’, or ‘He looks so sad! I can see tears on his cheeks, poor frog!’ and then wait for your child to have a turn and respond.
  • At the end of each page, pause and wait for your child to comment (even if it’s simply: ‘Hurry up Dad, turn the page!’).
  • If your child wants to expand on what’s happening in the story, show enthusiasm and join in!
  • Don’t be afraid of using and explaining advanced vocabulary – especially interesting words, e.g. ‘deciduous’, ‘drenched’ and ‘destructive’, especially after multiple readings of the same book. With new words, say them slowly, make them louder and longer than other words, say them repeatedly in sentences, and tie the new word to other words your child already knows, e.g. ‘The bear hibernated – he went to sleep for a long time. He hibernated for weeks and weeks. He hibernated in his cave. He was very sleepy. He couldn’t wake up because he was hibernating!’. Here’s an example of how one of our amazingly creative clients learned about the word ‘catapult’ from Pamela Allen’s ‘The Pear in the Pear Tree’. Love it!

  • Act out the books. Use stuffed toys or puppets or Lego or action figures or dolls. I love doing this with books like Who Sank the Boat and There was an Old Lady who swallowed a Fly.
  • Read books that provoke or even irk your child into a response. My current favourite is ‘This is a ball‘, which never fails to get a strong response from even reluctant talkers!
  • When reading a book for the second (or 100th) time, help your child think more deeply about the story:
    • talk about the story elements: the main character, the setting of the story, the goal of the main character (or the problem he/she is tackling), what happens, and the ending and how it makes you feel.
    • think ‘out loud’ for your child’s benefit about what’s happening in the story and why, e.g: ‘I’m thinking that the frog is sad’, or ‘I’m wondering about when the bear will wake up’, or ‘I’m trying to figure out what will happen when the princess kisses the frog’.
    • ask open, more complicated questions, like ‘How does she feel?’, ‘Have you ever felt that way?’, ‘What would you do?’, ‘What do you think will happen next?’ and ‘Why do you think she’s happy?’. If, after waiting, your child doesn’t respond, answer your questions with what you think, then wait. Being a bit silly can sometimes provoke a response, e.g. ‘I think the princess will turn into a frog too!’. Connecting the action in the book to your child’s life can boost vocabulary development, comprehension and recall of facts (e.g. Aram et al., 2013).
  • With repeated readings of favourite books (or with alphabet books), bring your child’s attention to the printed words, letters and sounds to build their print awareness and phonological awareness:
    • help your child notice the letters and words to build their print awareness. Show them the cover page, the way the words are written across the pages from left to right, and how words are made of letters. Point out printed words wherever you see them during the day, e.g. on signs, cereal packets, and other books; and
    • highlight letters and explain the sounds they make to build your child’s phonological awareness skills, which are related to later reading outcomes.

Related articles:

  • Teaching the alphabet to your child? Here’s what you need to know
  • Preparing your pre-schooler to learn to read. Skills to focus on first
  • Before Big School, does your preschooler need help with pre-reading skills? Introducing PreLit sessions
  • Kick-start your child’s reading with speech sound knowledge (phonological awareness)
  • Is your child struggling to read? Here’s what works
  • How to help your child to learn new words – the nuts and bolts of how I actually do it in therapy
  • Do we spend too much time on rhyming books? What else should we do to prepare pre-schoolers to read?
  • FAQ: In what order and at what age should my child have learned his/her speech sound consonants?

Principal source: Greenburg, J. (2015). I’m Ready!: Coaching Parents to prepare their pre-schooler for literacy success. An eSeminar, which I attended on 10 May 2017. Many of the strategies highlighted above are based on this seminar, which, in turn, were derived from “I’m Ready! How to Prepare your Child for Reading Success” by Janice Greenburg and Elaine Weitzman of the Hanen Centre in Canada. 

Image: http://tinyurl.com/mvjc57v

Hi there, I’m David Kinnane.

Principal Speech Pathologist, Banter Speech & Language

Our talented team of certified practising speech pathologists provide unhurried, personalised and evidence-based speech pathology care to children and adults in the Inner West of Sydney and beyond, both in our clinic and via telehealth.

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