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Welcome to our second edition of Contra Costa's Raising a Reader Quarterly. This publication will provide you with: Research in the area of early childhood literacy development, Activities to help you engage families in literacy activities at home, and Reflections from the field from practitioners who are implementing RAR. This issue is focused on Interactive Storytelling tips, and sharing these tips with parents. We encourage you to download the ready materials to use in your program and send home in the Raising a Reader red bags. If you need assistance with the download or would like materials mailed, please call Elida Treanor at 925-771-7319 or email etreanor@firstfivecc.org. We welcome your feedback about how you are using the ideas or if you have ideas to share for the next issue. If you know someone who would enjoy this newsletter, please feel free to forward it. Our next Quarterly Focus, available in Spring, will be on strengthening family's connection to their local Library. We will be ordering blue library bags. Please call or email Jeannie the number of blue bags you will need for children at your site, that don't already have them. Contact Jeannie Peirce with any questions or suggestions at 925-771-7340 or ermmp@aol.com.

 

January 2011 IIssssuuee 22

"The fire of literacy is created by the emotional sparks between a child, a book and the person

reading. It isn't achieved by the book

alone, not the child alone, nor by the adult who's reading aloud - it's the

relationship winding between the all three,

b ringing them together ineasy harmony." - Mem Fox, author of Reading Magic - Why Reading

Aloud to our Children will Change their Lives

Forever

 

 

RReesseeaarrcchh

Dr. Jason Anthony, University of Texas, just finished a four year study on how to makeRAR most impactful and ways to improve implementation to better support children'sreading readiness. His research was most focused on child readiness outcomes. He foundthat putting books in the home is not enough. We need to teach parents how to do qualityshared reading, and give them opportunities to practice storytelling techniques. Interactive Storytelling, also called Dialogic Reading, is a way of sharing stories that helpschildren become involved in the story. It is as easy as asking questions that prompt thechild to think and use their language, expanding on what the child says, and encouraging thechild to say a little more. It is the back and forth that makes storytelling interactive. Thegoal of Interactive Storytelling is to make reading a shared activity with the child byencouraging the child to listen and participate. Interactive Storytelling is easy and fun. Children learn the most from books when they areactively involved, so it is good to ask questions and give the child time to respond.Interactive storytelling benefits children's early literacy development and braindevelopment. Language strengthens connections in the brain. So the more parents talk,read, play and respond to their child, the more connections their child will have in theirbrain. HOW TO DO THIS

"CROWD" is an acronym to make it easy to do interactive storytelling techniques. This isone way to help us and parents remember the range of questions or prompts that can beused.

C - COMPLETION prompts encourage children to finish sentences that are fun to repeat. Ex. I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll ............... R - RECALL prompts ask children to recall information from previous pages or reading. Ex. Remember when .......... O - OPEN ENDED prompts encourage children to use their own words to tell what is happening on a page or in a picture. Ex. What's going on in this picture? W - WH prompts are Who, Why, When, Where, or What will happen next? D - DISTANCING prompts ask children to make connections between the world of the book and real world of their experience. Ex. Have you ever...?

CROWD is research based, promotes comprehension, develops critical thinking skills,supports vocabulary development, and emphasizes conversational interactions. WithCROWD, choose the prompt or prompts you want to use with a particular story; it'sposssible you may not use all prompts with every story. Click on Dialogic Reading: An Effective Way to Read to Preschoolers to view and print thisarticle to further your knowledge. Click on Read Aloud Role Play Coaching Activity to view and print a resource from Raising aReader to use as a guide in your efforts to introduce and support parents in theirinteractive storytelling efforts. This information can be used in a way that works best foryour site, for example, formally at parent meetings, parent conferences or home visits, orinformally when parents pick up or drop off their child. What's most important is to help parents incorporate interactive storytelling in theirreading routine. You can help parents understand the important role they play in theirchild's development and readiness for school and life by delivering messages in easy-to-understand words and using examples that don't overwhelm or confuse. Be sure parentshave a tangible resource to refer back to at home (like the flyer-set below).

AAccttiivviittiieess

It's a wonderful experience to look at the engaged, happy faces of children as you read aloud to them. Since you do it every day, you know how fun Dialogic Reading (interactive storytelling) can be! The word CROWD reminds you of the different interactive storytelling prompts to use when reading aloud with children. The following activities are simple, but can be used for several days or weeks. NOTE PROMPTS -For every book, be sure to use at least one of the CROWD example prompts or make up your own. Focus on one technique per week, in order: C- R- O- W- D. Plan ahead by placing your prompts throughout the book before you start reading time. Click on this example, one page from The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats, to see how CROWD reminders as prompts can be used for books in class or at home.

BOOKMARKS -Each week, make copies of a CROWD prompt on bookmark-sized paper for each child. Add the child's picture to make it special. Put this in the Red Bags and continue until prompts for the entire CROWD technique have gone home. POSTER / FLYER - In class, put up the colorful, helpful poster in a place visible to you during reading time. Written examples and images provide other ways to remember interactive storytelling techniques. Send home the English-Spanish, 8.5 x 11 flyer-set in the Red Bags so it can be posted on the refrigerator or wherever the parent and child read together. The goal is to encourage family members to read with the child! If you think of another creative approach, please share!

RReefflleeccttiioonnss

Brittney Danon and Shannon Del Prado Evans shared their experiences of helping parentsto learn interactive storytelling techniques. Brittney Models Brittney Danon, preschool teacher at Grant Elementary in Richmond, models read aloudtechniques at her Parent Meetings. She has typed up strategies (in English and Spanish)for "Reading to your child" and discusses these with families. Most families came to thegroup meetings, but she made sure that she met individually with families who couldn'tattend the group meeting. How did she make this a success? Brittney held the meeting with parents while thechildren were in class. At the beginning of her meeting, Brittney modeled the read aloud,stopping and asking questions, and let the parents know that these are questions they couldask their children. She knew parents were engaged in what she was sharing because theywere laughing and smiling and played along. Later, she heard back from a few parents-some found it very helpful and others told herhow they were using the strategies. Brittney plans to expand this discussion at her nextparent meeting by giving them more opportunity to practice these tips themselves. CLICK HERE for Brittney's handout in English and Spanish. Shannon's Bookmark Tips Shannon Del Prado-Evans, a family childcare provider in Antioch, has sent home interactiveread-aloud tips, one at a time, on a laminated bookmark with their child's picture. Parentsare more likely to keep the tip since it has their child's picture! How did Shannon make this successful? Shannon had the children decorate the back of thebookmark, she talked to the children about how to use a book mark, and asked them to giveit to their parents. She repeated this 5 times, so every child had 5 book marks withdifferent tips and different photos. To reinforce the RAR principles, she first used thetips with children during story time so they were familiar with the tip and could "help"their parents! Bookmarks were sent home one at a time; every bag had the same tip-theone they focused on in the program. She followed up with families when red bags werereturned to find out how they used the book mark and tip. Parents reported that theyliked having the weekly tip rather than a whole handout and Shannon found that parentsand children use the tips as part of their read-aloud habit. For example, one childrequested of his parent, "Can we sing that book tonight together?" and another parent saidshe started asking, "What happens next?" more often.

Contact Us To share ideas and tips: Jeannie Peirce, RAR Training & Support Consultant, ermmp@aol.com

To add emails or get copies: ElidaTreanor, Program Assistant, etreanor@firstfivecc.org

 

Permission for this article was provided by Grover J. (Russ) Whitehurst, Ph.D., Director, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education.Copyright 2008. All rights reserved. Reading Rockets is funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs. Reading Rockets® is a registered trademark of WETA.

Dialogic Reading: An Effective Way to Read to Preschoolers

By: Grover J. (Russ) Whitehurst (1992)

Dialogic reading works. Children who have been read to dialogically are substantially ahead of children who have been read to traditionally on tests of language development. Children can jump ahead by several months in just a few weeks of dialogic reading.

Over a third of children in the U.S. enter school unprepared to learn. They lack the vocabulary, sentence structure, and other basic skills that are required to do well in school. Children who start behind generally stay behind – they drop out, they turn off. Their lives are at risk.

Why are so many children deficient in the skills that are critical to school readiness?

Children's experience with books plays an important role. Many children enter school with thousands of hours of experience with books. Their homes contain hundreds of picture books. They see their parents and brothers and sisters reading for pleasure. Other children enter school with fewer than 25 hours of shared book reading. There are few if any children's books in their homes. Their parents and siblings aren't readers.

Picture book reading provides children with many of the skills that are necessary for school readiness: vocabulary, sound structure, the meaning of print, the structure of stories and language, sustained attention, the pleasure of learning, and on and on. Preschoolers need food, shelter, love; they also need the nourishment of books.

It is important to read frequently with your preschooler. Children who are read to three times per week or more do much better in later development than children who are read to less than three times per week. It is important to begin reading to your child at an early age. By nine months of age, infants can appreciate books that are interesting to touch or that make sounds.

What is dialogic reading?

How we read to preschoolers is as important as how frequently we read to them. The Stony Brook Reading and Language Project has developed a method of reading to preschoolers that we call dialogic reading.

When most adults share a book with a preschooler, they read and the child listens. In dialogic reading, the adult helps the child become the teller of the story. The adult becomes the listener, the questioner, the audience for the child. No one can learn to play the piano just by listening to someone else play. Likewise, no one can learn to read just by listening to someone else read. Children learn most from books when they are actively involved.

The fundamental reading technique in dialogic reading is the PEER sequence. This is a short interaction between a child and the adult. The adult:

• Prompts the child to say something about the book,

• Evaluates the child's response,

• Expands the child's response by rephrasing and adding information to it, and

• Repeats the prompt to make sure the child has learned from the expansion.

Imagine that the parent and the child are looking at the page of a book that has a picture of a fire engine on it. The parent says, "What is this?" (the prompt) while pointing to the fire truck.

Permission for this article was provided by Grover J. (Russ) Whitehurst, Ph.D., Director, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education.Copyright 2008. All rights reserved. Reading Rockets is funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs. Reading Rockets® is a registered trademark of WETA.

The child says, truck, and the parent follows with "That's right (the evaluation); it's a red fire truck (the expansion); can you say fire truck?" (the repetition).

Except for the first reading of a book to children, PEER sequences should occur on nearly every page. Sometimes you can read the written words on the page and then prompt the child to say something. For many books, you should do less and less reading of the written words in the book each time you read it. Leave more to the child.

How to prompt children

There are five types of prompts that are used in dialogic reading to begin PEER sequences. You can remember these prompts with the word CROWD.

• Completion prompts

You leave a blank at the end of a sentence and get the child to fill it in. These are typically used in books with rhyme or books with repetitive phases. For example, you might say, "I think I'd be a glossy cat. A little plump but not too ____," letting the child fill in the blank with the word fat. Completion prompts provide children with information about the structure of language that is critical to later reading.

• Recall prompts

These are questions about what happened in a book a child has already read. Recall prompts work for nearly everything except alphabet books. For example, you might say, "Can you tell me what happened to the little blue engine in this story?" Recall prompts help children in understanding story plot and in describing sequences of events. Recall prompts can be used not only at the end of a book, but also at the beginning of a book when a child has been read that book before.

• Open-ended prompts

These prompts focus on the pictures in books. They work best for books that have rich, detailed illustrations. For example, while looking at a page in a book that the child is familiar with, you might say, "Tell me what's happening in this picture." Open-ended prompts help children increase their expressive fluency and attend to detail.

• Wh- prompts

These prompts usually begin with what, where, when, why, and how questions. Like open-ended prompts, wh- prompts focus on the pictures in books. For example, you might say, "What's the name of this?" while pointing to an object in the book. Wh- questions teach children new vocabulary.

• Distancing prompts

These ask children to relate the pictures or words in the book they are reading to experiences outside the book. For example, while looking at a book with a picture of animals on a farm, you might say something like, "Remember when we went to the animal park last week. Which of these animals did we see there?" Distancing prompts help children form a bridge between books and the real world, as well as helping with verbal fluency, conversational abilities, and narrative skills.

Distancing prompts and recall prompts are more difficult for children than completion, open-ended, and wh- prompts. Frequent use of distancing and recall prompts should be limited to four- and five-year-olds.

Virtually all children's books are appropriate for dialogic reading. The best books have rich detailed pictures, or are interesting to your child. Always follow your child's interest when sharing books with your child.

Permission for this article was provided by Grover J. (Russ) Whitehurst, Ph.D., Director, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education.Copyright 2008. All rights reserved. Reading Rockets is funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs. Reading Rockets® is a registered trademark of WETA.

A technique that works

Dialogic reading works. Children who have been read to dialogically are substantially ahead of children who have been read to traditionally on tests of language development. Children can jump ahead by several months in just a few weeks of dialogic reading. We have found these effects with hundreds of children in areas as geographically different as New York, Tennessee, and Mexico, in settings as varied as homes, preschools, and daycare centers, and with children from economic backgrounds ranging from poverty to affluence.

Dialogic reading is just children and adults having a conversation about a book. Children will enjoy dialogic reading more than traditional reading as long as you mix-up your prompts with straight reading, vary what you do from reading to reading, and follow the child's interest. Keep it light. Don't push children with more prompts than they can handle happily. Keep it fun.

Raising A Reader Read Aloud Role Play Coaching Activity

Goal: Role play coaching a parent in Read Aloud Gather in groups of 2-3: One parent, one coach OR one parent, one coach, and one child Explain the following interactive dialog techniques:

• Predictions

• Extend Vocabulary

• Clarify Concepts

• Praise

• Develop Story Structure

• Focus on Illustrations

• Expand Ideas

• Share Experiences

• Point Out Text Features

• Connect Print to the Story Describe ways the parents can use the interactive dialog techniques:

• Ask your child to look at the cover of the book and guess what the title will be. Then tell your child the title.

• Open to the first page of the story. Ask your child who or what s/he sees. Talk about what is happening.

• In the following pages, as the story develops, ask more specific questions about what is happening in the story and why? Help your child to answer the questions if s/he is very young.

• Pay attention to details in the pictures, pointing out new objects that appear, or move from place to place. Look for the same objects on different pages.

• Relate things you see or story ideas back to your child's life. For example, if the story talks about getting ready for bedtime, you can talk about how your child's routine is the same or different from what you see in the book.

Sample dialog the coach can assist the parent with:

• What do you think this book will be called?

• What is a ladder?

• What do you think the mouse will do?

• What other kinds of fruit do we pick?

• Does the mouse want us to be quiet?

• Do you know what ‘ripe’ means? Wrap up by asking the group a few questions:

• What are the barriers presented?

• What were the positive outcomes?

It is important to read frequently with your preschooler.

Preschoolers need food, shelter, love; they also need the nourishment of books.

Dialogic reading is just children and adults having a conversation about a book. In dialogic reading, the adult helps or prompts the child to become the teller of the story. The adult becomes the listener, the ques-tioner, and the audience for the child. Children learn most from books when they are actively involved.

It is important to begin reading to your child at an early age.

Children's experience with books plays an important role in school readiness.

There are 5 types of prompts used in dialogic reading. Remember these prompts with the word CROWD.

Recall prompts are used with a book a child already has read and can be used anytime during the story. Children recall

information from a previous reading or pages.

For example, you might say, "Can you remember and tell me what happened to the little blue engine in this story?"

Open-ended prompts encourage a child to pay attention to the pictures in books.

For example, while looking at a page in a book that the child is familiar with, you might say, "Tell me what's happening in this picture."

Distancing prompts ask children to make connections between the pictures or words in the book and their experiences outside

the book. For example, while looking at a book with pictures of animals on a farm, you might say, “Remember when we went to the zoo. Which of these animals did we see there?”

Wh- prompts usually begin with what, where, when, why, and how questions about pictures in books.

For example, you might say, "What's the name of this?" while pointing to an object in the book. Or you might ask, “How do you think this will end?”

Completion prompts happen when you leave a blank at the end of a rhyming sentence or a repetitive phrase and let the

child to fill it in.

For example, you might say, "I think I'd be a glossy cat. A little plump but not too ____," letting the child fill in the word fat.

Hay cinco tipos de claves usadas en la lectura dialogal. Recuerde estas claves con la palabra CROWD en inglés.

Las claves sobre recordar se usan con un libro que el niño/a ya haya leído y puede ser usado en cualquier momento durante el

cuento. Los niños recuerdan información de una lectura o páginas previas. Por ejemplo, usted podría decir, “¿Puedes recordar y decirme Que sucedió a la pequeña maquinita azul en este cuento?”

Las claves que no tienen un final y que se dejan abiertas Animan a que el niño/a preste atención a los dibujos en los

libros. Por ejemplo, mientras están mirando una página en un libro con el que el niño/a está familiarizado, usted podría decir, “Dime qué está pasando en este dibujo.”

Las claves de distanciamiento piden a los niños hacer conexiones entre los dibujos o palabras en el libro y experiencias fuera del

libro. Por ejemplo, mientras miran a un libro con dibujos de animales en una granja, usted podría decir, “¿Recuerdas cuando fuimos al zoológico? ¿Cuál de estos animales vimos allí?”

Las claves WH en español generalmente empiezan con preguntas que comienzan con Qué Dónde, Cuándo, Por qué y

Cómo (que generalmente en inglés comienzan con palabras que empiezan con WH o How) y que tratan sobre los dibujos en los libros. Por ejemplo, usted podría decir. “¿Cómo se llama esto? Mientras señala a un objeto en el libro. O bien podría preguntar, “Cómo crees que esto va a terminar?

Las claves sobre completar se hacen cuando usted deja un es pacio en blanco al final de una frase con rima o una frase

repetitiva y deja que el niño/a la complete. Por ejemplo, usted podría decir, “I think I’d be a glossy cat. A little plump but not too ______,” dejando que el niño/ complete la palabra fat.

There are 5 types of prompts used in dialogic reading.

Remember these prompts with the word CROWD.

Recall prompts are used with a book a child already has read and can be used anytime during the story.

Children recall information from a previous reading or pages.

For example, you might say, "Can you remember and tell me what happened to the little blue engine in this story?"

Open-ended prompts encourage a child to pay attention to the pictures in books.

For example, while looking at a page in a book that the child is familiar with, you might say, "Tell me what's happening in this picture."

Distancing prompts ask children to make connections between the pictures or words in the book

and their experiences outside the book.

For example, while looking at a book with pictures of animals on a farm, you might say, “Remember when we went to the zoo. Which of these animals did we see there?”

Wh- prompts usually begin with what, where, when, why, and how questions about pictures in books.

For example, you might say, "What's the name of this?" while pointing to an object in the book. Or you might ask, “How do you think this will end?”

Completion prompts happen when you leave a blank at the end of a rhyming sentence or a repetitive

phrase and let the child to fill it in.

For example, you might say, "I think I'd be a glossy cat. A little plump but not too ____," letting the child fill in the word fat.

 Strategies For Reading With Your Child  from Brittney Danon, preschool teacher at Grant Elementary in Richmond  

   Here are some ways to use the books in your child’s book bag to support pre‐k and kindergarten literacy objectives. You can also use these reading strategies with any book you check out at the library:  

• Have your child go on a letter hunt, finding a particular letter in the book.  

• Have your child find the spaces as you read the story. 

• Have your child find the periods as you read the story. 

• Talk about the vocabulary in the story; help your child understand what all 

the words mean. You could act them out or show your child pictures of what 

the word is. 

• Have your child make a prediction from the front cover. “I think this book is 

about _________ because __________.”  To extend the learning, you can read them 

the title of the book and ask them what they think the title tells them about 

the story.  

• Have your child describe what is happening in the pictures or even “read” 

the whole book to you by telling you what happens in the pictures.  

• Talk about the beginning, middle, and end with your child. Ask them to draw 

you a picture of the beginning one day, the middle on your next reading, and 

what happens at the end the last time you read the book.  

• Point out sight words, such as the, and, a, to, in, you, of, it, is, he, and she 

• Encourage your child to act out the story with your or their 

friends/brothers/sisters. They could act out the story with stuffed animals, 

hand made puppets from paper lunch sacks, or with old clothes so they can 

dress up and pretend to be the characters in the stories.  

• Ask your child to show you the front cover, back cover, spine, and title page. 

• Point out the page numbers. Have your child read the page numbers or 

guess what page number is going to come next. 

• Ask your child what the author and illustrators jobs are.  Ask them to show 

you on a random page what the author did and what the illustrator did.  

 

 

 

 

Estrategias Para Leer Con Su Hijo 

 

Por favor usar esta recomendaciones con tus hijos para practicando los objetivos de educacion de pre‐kindergarten.  Pudieran usar estos con libro cualquier de la biblioteca:  

• Hagan su hijo encontrar una carta especifica en el libro  

• Hablan sobre el vocabulario de la historia, ayudan a su niño a entender la 

media de las palabras. Podrían actuar o mostrar fotografias a su hijo para 

identificar lo que significa de la palabra 

• Ayudan a su hijo completar la frase: “Creo que este libro sobre de _________ 

porque _________.” Para mas aprendizaje, ustedes podrian leer el titulo del libro 

y pregúntenles que piensan que la significa del titulo.  

• Hagan su hijo describar lo que esta pasando en las fotos en orden de la 

historia. 

• Hablan sobre el inicio, medio y termina del libro con su hijo. Hagan su hijo 

que decirle sobre del inicio, medio y termina de la historia cada cuando 

ustedes lleguen a cada seccion.  

• Identifican las palabras importantes, como “el”, “y”, “a”, “en”, “que”, “de”, “es”, 

“él” y “ella” (the, and, a, to, in, you, of, it, is, he, and she) 

• Anime a su niño que actúe la historia con su o sus amigos / hermanos / 

hermanas. Podrían representar el cuento con animales de peluche, muñecos 

hechos a mano de sacos de comida de papel, o con ropa vieja para que puedan 

disfrazarse y pasar por los personajes de las historias. 

• Sugieren a su hijo que muestre la historia con sus amigos y hermanos.   

• Identifican los numeros de las paginas.  Hagan que su hijo leer los numeros o 

tambien identificar el numero de la pagina siguente.  

• Pídalen a su niño lo que los trabajos de autores e ilustradores. Hagan que 

aparecer en cualquier pagina que lo que el autor o ilustrador hizo.