BOOKS IN INFANT EDUCATION

I think that books are too important for education and young learners too. Thanks to books children can learnt a lot of listening, grammar and vocabulary skills but as well they can learnt fillings, values, culture, etc. in a funny way.

But a lot of times when someone tells a story. He does not give the importance that it really has. A lot of teachers use the reading corners when they need fill gaps in the time table. Why we don´t give it the importance that it really has when in the BOE speaks about it in some objectives and we can see the importance that it has to the learning process.

 On my point of view books are so important for education and it might be a base of children education.  As well a lot of teacher don’t know that it is so useful to do activities before during and after of the activities.  But as we can see in classes it is so useful.

For this reason, I like this subject. It is teaching a lot of activities, how to use puppets, How do a storytelling, ect.

I am agree with the notes that give us teacher. We need to use good storybooks that Teachers should select authentic storybooks that are accessible and relevant for children. As we know the difficulty of this issue is to use the correct book. The teacher helps us with this, giving us good criteria. These criteria are:

●       Level

●       Literary devices 

●       Values 

●       Educational potential 

●       Literary devices 

●       Illustrations (This point in me point of view it is one of the most important ones, because a lot of times pictures can help to understand the plot and vocabulary of the story).

But us we know many authentic storybooks can be used with a variety of ages and levels, depending on how the teacher exploits the story.  And we learn in our lessons how to adapt them to a particular age. Like a second language teacher we must consider the lingusitc level of the children.

As well I believe that the teacher must use a different ways of introducing literature 2in class, for example read aloud books, doing storytelling, plays, etc.

Attending this entire thing I thing that following books are interesting to use in a class.

POLAR BEAR POLAR BEAR WHAT DO YOU HEAR?

If you don´t know the book you can  watch it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehoGdGokXfc

I choose this book because when Susana showed us Polar Bear Polar Bear what do you see? It was amazing and I tried to buy, But when I tried to buy Polar Bear Polar Bear what do you see? in a book shop I found this one call “Polar Bear Polar bear what do you hear? That I like so much too.

AUTHOR

BILL MARTIN JR.

As we can read on the Internet, in 1972 he became a full-time writer. It is astonishing how he revitalized his publishing career when he met John Archambault in 1983 at UC Riverside. They went on to collaborate on more than a dozen award-winning books, including Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, and Barn Dance!, books that I really recommend for children. As we can read as well, during the last 15 years of his life, he co-wrote many books with Michael Sampson, whom he met at a reading conference in Tucson, Arizona in 1978.

I think that this book is good to learn vocabulary for second language learners. I think that children can learn in a funny way some animal names and how they cold the animal sound verbs.

I think that this book it is appropriate to 6 years old English learners, because they have such a big curiosity about animals. The vocabulary and the type of book I think that it is appropriate too. They can learn some useful grammar stuff like question or present simple structures.

SUME UP

I like the way that the author presents animals and the noise that they make. However, it was amazing how he decides to finish the story. At the end he decided to introduce the zookeeper!!! Moreover, in the last page children can remember how is the sound of all the animals that appear in the book without clues because in the last page it appears all the illustrations of the animals. 

ILUSTRATIONS

As we can see, this book has a good size for reading it aloud; I can imagine reading it aloud with children making a circle next to me.

Illustrations make second language learners understand the meaning of the plot, because it has in each page a very big animal painting filling nearly all the page. The paintings are connected to the text as well helping it to understand it. The author wants to show the importance of the pictures rather than the text. For this reason I think that it is a good book to read aloud.

LETTERS

The text of the book it is well divided. Leaving in each page one sentence makes it easy for second language learners. The sentences that are used in the book (present simple and question structures) are repetitive in the entire book. This, in me point of view, provides good inputs for the children.

The letter typography is easy to read and has a good side. The letters and words are well separated to make it easy to read.

ACTIVITIES

BEFORE

A funny way to introduce the book is, in me point of view, spending a day with them in a zoo. They can learn how the animals look like in the real life, how is their behaviour, where they live, etc.

And then they are going to see some of them in the book!!! It is going to be amazing!!!

The next day before reading the book I wold ask some questions to them. Some of then can be: What are your favourite animals?  What sound do they make? etc.

DOURING

I would use this book for reading it aloud to the class. As we can see, this book has a good size for reading it aloud, because children making a circle close to the teacher can see all the pictures very well. In me point of view, one of the best ways to keep children’s attention is letting them collaborate. It would be funny asking them to make the animal sound aloud and I would ask them to make some animals mimics in each page, for example asking them: what does the leopard do? If they don´t understand it, I would do it first and ask them to imitate me.

AFTER

As we know, all the books should be read to the children more than once. For this reason, I would do this activity after the book was read to the class a minimum of 4 times. I think that this activity is an easy way to evaluate. The purpose of this activity is to link each animal with his English name. We can do it using new technologies as well, such PDIs.

I would do a game in PoWtoons (a PDI application) where children can participate. I think a good activity can be: link the English animal name (in this case I would use the speakers, letting them hear the animal name) with his book’s picture.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

●       https://www.billmartinjr.com/bill_martin

●       http://www.jbonzer.com/PolarBearPolarBear1bymrs.bonzer.pdf

●       https://www.pinterest.es/

   

I AM A DERTY DINOSAUR

If you don´t know the book you can watch it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JK7-jvs39M

AUTHOR

JANEEN BRIAN

As we can read in her website page, she never thought on becoming a writer but finally she became a well known one. She began as a teacher that loves literature and reading aloud to his class. Then she thought that writing small poems could be useful to teach some stuff to her class, and nowadays she is a famous educational publisher.

ANN JAMES

Ann Catherine Stewart James (born 6 October 1952) is an Australian illustrator of more than 60 children books. As we know, she has become a significant contributor to the development and appreciation of children's literature in Australia and she had won some awards. Some of them were: In 2000 when she won the Pixie O'Harris Award, and in 2002 when she won the national Dromkeen Medal for her contribution to children's literature. Anne James currently lives and works in Melbourne, where she runs the Books Illustrated gallery and studio that co-founded with Ann Haddon in 1988.

I choose this book because I could teach children a lot of vocabulary about the body and I think that it is a good idea to read aloud to children with English as a second language.  As all the books have the same structure, children can receive useful inputs about present simple structures. I also like this book because the children can identify themselves with the main character, the dinosaur, and it is useful for them in order to understand better the story. I like the structure that follows the book and I think that the rhythmical text is engaging and found to read aloud.

I would use this book for 3 years old children. At this age, lots of 3 years old children love playing with madness and they can identify themselves with the main character, the dinosaur. Moreover, they’d love the onomatopoeias and this book uses a lot of them, it is amazing how children experiment the language repeating them.

SUM UP

In this section I will give a short summary of the book. If you have read the book you can see that the story is about a dinosaur that doesn’t like having baths and likes playing in the mud, and he ends up covered of mud all around his body. Finally, he has a bath at the end of the book, but later goes back to the mud once clean and finishes dirty again. 

PICTURES

Talking about picture illustration I would say that they are simple and not very colourful. The author only uses brown and black colours. I think it makes it is useful for people who don’t understand very well the language. It is amazing how you can understand the story only looking at the pictures.

The text that its writing in the book appears in a small part of the page (only one or two phrases in each page) and appears in a part of the page that don´t disturbed the pictures. 

LETTER

The letter that is used in this book is easy to understand and it appears in the middle high. They always use the same type of letter and most of it is in black colour.

I like the author´s idea of changing the colour and the size of the onomatopoeia sound words sounds, it is a good way to highlight this part of the text.

As we can see this onomatopoeia sounds words appear without illustration filling the entire page and in a colourful wright way. 

ACTIVITIES

BEFORE

The first activity that I would like to do with the class before reading the book it is: give children freedom to play wearing their swimming suit in the mud with some accessories like buckets or shoves. They can have the opportunity to experiment with the mud, something that a lot of adults don´t like them to do it.

DURING

Before I read aloud the book, I would ask some questions to the class in order to give them the opportunity to speak in English and try to express themselves. To help them I would ask some questions like: What do you think this book it is about? Have you ever seen a dinosaur? Do you often play in the mud? I would try that every child makes a comment.

I choose the read aloud thechnique and to keep children attention I would make them collaborate for example repeating the onomatopoeias or pointing at the same time as me the parts of their bodies when they appear in the story. 

Once I finished reading aloud the book, I would ask some questions to see if they understand the plot of the story. Some questions will be: What happens when the dinosaur has a bath? What parts of the body does he have dirty? Etc.

AFTER

After reading the story I would like that each child paints a muddy dinosaur.

For this activity would need:

●       Brown finger paint cans

●       Painting sheets with the dinosaur printed on it.

●       Some bowls

In this activity children would paint with finger painting the parts of the body that the dinosaur gets dirty.

Finally, they let it dry. When all the paintings are dry we would use them to decorate our classroom.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

●       https://janeenbrian.com/

●       https://www.pinterest.es/

GUESS HOW MUCH I LOVE YOU

In some schools’ children are too advanced in contrast to other schools levels. For this reason, I’d like to use this section to talk about a book that I would use in this case.

I would use Guess How much I love you book for 5 years old children advance English learners. As we can read in some websites this book it is a British children's book written by Sam McBratney and illustrated by Anita Jeram. It was published in 1994, in the UK by Walker Books They sold more than 28 million of copies worldwide and was published in 53 languages.

If you don´t know the book you can watch it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aep8wNHGto

AUTHOR

SAM MC BRATNEY

It is a remarkable children book writer from Northern Ireland. He wrote more than fifty books for children and young adults, but is best known as the author of the best-selling children's book Guess How Much I Love You, which has sold more than 28 million copies worldwide, and been translated into 53 languages.

ANITA JERAM

She always enjoyed drawing, but she had worked in a wide variety of jobs before pursuing a degree course in illustration at Manchester Polytechnic. Her first book, Bill's Belly Button, was published by Walker Books in 1991. But as we know other books she has written are: Contrary Mary (1995), Bunny, My Honey (1999), and I Love My Little Storybook (2002).

As an illustrator, Jeram received recognition for her illustrations in Sam McBratney's Guess How Much I Love You, which is a picture-book best seller.  As you can read in her biography, she has also illustrated several books by Dick King-Smith and Amy Hest.

SUMME UP

One of the best characteristics of this book it is that children can identify themselves easily with little rabbit. Ans in me point of view it makes the book more attractive to them.  Other advantage it is that being identify with one of the main characters could help them to understand more easily the plot.

This book, in me point of view, has a deep topic. It is about love, something that it is difficult to understand for young and old people. For this reason, I think that it is useful to speak about it with your child.

In this case I think that we can be creative inside our class and we can do a Kamishibai work using the pictures´ illustrations.

Now focus in the plot I will say that Little Rabbit shows his daddy how much he loves him: as wide as he can reach and as far as he can hop. However, does Big Rabbit love him more? Because he can reach farther and hop higher, loves him back just as much. Then Little Rabbit loves him right up to the moon, but that's just halfway to Big Nutbrown Hare's love for him.

PICTURES

In the illustrations, predominate brown, blue, yellow and green colours.  I like the pictures because they are very realistic, they fit together with the text but you can´t understand the plot only with this book’s illustrations.

But the pictures fill a big part of each page and they are located in strategy places.

WORD

With this book you can work a lot of little thinks like vocabulary and grammar (present simple, past, comparatives, superlatives structures and some expressions like I love you to the moon and back.)

The text takes up a big part of the page and the letters are easy to understand. The writer uses the same kind and high of letter through the book. He uses thing and black letters that in my point of view go very well with the pictures of the pages. 

ACTIVITIES

BEFORE

The first activity that I would do is an assembly. I think that letting the children talk would make them develop a lot of skills. For this reason in this activity I would ask them some questions like: What do you thing love is? Have you ever fallen in love? What do you think people do when they love to someone? Etc.

I am going to ask them some questions step by step and let them discuss about the topic.

DOURING

I think that the best way to tell this story is using a Teatro Kamishibai technique. In this section I would tell the story giving importance to the illustrations. But I would make children participate as well asking him to jump, to open his arms, etc.

AFTER

To end this story I would do some biscuits in the class to give the children the opportunity to give a present to the people that they really love. They can give the biscuits to their parents, grandparents,…

BIBLIOGRAPHY

●       http://www.guesshowmuchiloveyou.com/

●       https://www.pinterest.es/

●       https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_McBratney

READER

I choose this book because I think that a lot of time we focus in theoretical context like numbers, shapes,… but who teach them about their feelings? I think that knowing about happiness, anger, fear,… is as important as knowing how to add or make patrons.

In the original book Ana Llenas uses the book to talk about feelings and how to differentiate them. She does it connecting feeling with colors something that from my point of view it is a great idea. Because a lot of times in early ages children don't know how to express what they feel or which emotion is the one they are feeling at that moment.

But as we learned in class this book can be a little tricky for second language learners for this reason I did an adaptation making a Reader from it.

To make the reader I kept in mind the vocabulary, grammar, plot, etc.

First of all I decided to shorten the plot, I did it focusing only in linking each colour with their feeling. The next step I took was changing the structure of the sentences, because from my point of view there are some phrases that are very long and complicated to understand for a second language learner. The next thing that I made was focus in the glossary and vocabulary, I decide to change some words, because I rather use some easy and diary words than  use old-fashioned synonyms. But to make it clear and easy to understand I decided to include a vocabulary glossary at the end.

One of the most complicated step was illustrating the book because I love Ana Llenas illustrations and I didn't wanted the book to lose the essence and the magic that it has. For this reason I decided to do a textures book doing a texture collage like you can see in the followings photos:

STORYTELLING

Story telling is the oldest form of education. People around the world have always told tales as a way of passing down their cultural beliefs, traditions and history to future generations.

WHY THEY ARE SO IMPORTANT IN INFANT EDUCATION?

I am agree with some of Mathev James points when he talks about storytelling.  I think that some of his benefits of using storytelling in kindergarten are:

●       Inspires purposeful talking, and not just about the story -- there are many games you can play.

●       Raises the enthusiasm for reading texts to find stories, reread them, etc.

●       Initiates writing because children will quickly want to write stories and tell them.

●       Enhances the community in the room.

●       Improves listening skills.

●       Really engages the boys who love the acting.

●       Is enjoyed by children from kindergarten to the end of elementary school.

●       Gives a motivating reason for English-language learners to speak and write English.

Us we can see stories are effective educational tools because listeners become engaged and therefore remember. Storytelling can be seen as a foundation for learning and teaching. While the story listener is engaged, they are able to imagine new perspectives, inviting a transformative and empathetic experience. This involves allowing the individual to actively engage in the story as well as observe, listen and participate with minimal guidance. Listening to a storyteller can create lasting personal connections, promote innovative problem solving and foster a shared understanding regarding future ambitions.

In class we have seen the main reasons for using storybooks and storytelling. These reasons are:

●       Stories are motivating, appealing and a source of positive attitudes. 

●       Storytelling in the classroom becomes a social experience where emotions and feelings are expressed. Therefore, social and emotional development is encouraged. 

●       Children identify with the characters and become personally involved in the story. 

●       Cultural information can be transmitted and cross-cultural comparison encouraged. 

●       Learning strategies can be worked (e.g. listening for general meaning, hypothesising, predicting, etc.). 

●       Rhythm and intonation can be improved. 

●       English can be connected to other subjects by means of stories. 

●       Creativity is encouraged. 

●       Structures and vocabulary can be presented and practised. 

●       Input that is a little beyond the learner’s current level of competence can be provided. 

●       Children can deal with ideas and important topics. 

●       Different types of intelligences can be developed.

A BIT LOST

WHY I CHOSE THIS BOOK

I chose this book because it´s one of my favourites stories and I like the values that it transmit (helping each other) and I think that it is important that children learn to help others since they are young.

I like this book also because of the illustrations. They are so simple and the author try to focus the pictures in main actions. It makes it easy to understand the plot and helps you follow the story. For this reason I believe that it is a good book for second language learners. 

SUM UP

Little Owl must be more careful when he is sleeping...Uh-oh! He has fallen from his nest, and with a bump he lands on the ground. Where is his mummy? With the earnest assistance of his new friend Squirrel, Little Owl sets off in search of her, and meets a sequence of other animals. He takes the little owl to a bear, a rabbit and a frog.   But only the frog knows where owl’s mummy is and they finally find her. 

AUTHOR

The writer and the illustrator of this book is Chris Haughton. This book it is the first picture book that he made. This book has been translated into over twenty languages and has won many international awards, including the Premio Andersen Award.

As an illustrator, he said in his web page: “I need to simplify everything to communicate something very elemental. So I try to find the very essence of a story and strip everything else back. One of the things I’ve been trying with my books is to tell stories as much as possible through images rather than through words. If the story can be read without language, it should have the ability to be understood by the very young.”

This is one of the main reason because I choose this book. I consider that children can receives second languages inputs while they are understanding the hall story because of the illustrations.

BOOK´S ILUSTRATIONS

Now focusing on the illustration, I would say that they are cool and quite unusual for a children’s picture book. But I like them because they are simples and almost child-like. They focus in the main action and they don´t have distractive pictures in the back ground, for this reason I consider that this book is a great idea to teach a second language.

I think that the illustrations in this book are useful and are created for people who don´t know how to read yet or don´t understand the language. This artist as we know have the ability to make books that you can understand only with the illustrations that accompany the text.

For this reason I think that it is a good book for second language learners and if you do a storytelling whit it the listeners can learn a lot because they are going to understand the story and receive at the same time a lot of inputs.

Now talking about the way that he made the book I will say that blue, orange and green are the predominant colours.

The letters are big and uniform and It is a bit insolate in the text, for this reason I could say that it is highlighted in the book. They use sort and easy sentences in the pages.

AGE

Now thinking about the best age to do a storytelling whit this book using a second language, I would say that the perfect age is 3-4 years old. Because it´s a simple story that they could understand easily with the help of the pictures.

But we know storytelling can be adapted to all ages, leaving out the notion of ages segregation. Like we learnt in this subject, storytelling can be used as a method to teach ethics, values and cultural norms and differences. Learning is most effective when it takes place in social environments that provide authentic social clues about how knowledge is to be applied. Stories work as tools to pass on knowledge in a social context.

PREPARING STORYTELLING

The first think I thought about was the introduction. Because from my point of view it is the most important thing.

For these reason I read the scripts in model and I watched some videos on Youtube about a good storytelling introduction.

Finally I talked about it with one friend and she helped me to think about the best introduction possible. We got to the point of doing it with a plush owl and a song. We thought that it was the best idea to keep children´s attention.

I believe that with this book we can work and introduce the question. For this reason I worked a lot in the intonation.  But we worked a little bit the description too.

Focusing now in vocabulary I could say that the book uses easy and basic words. With this book they can learn some animal’s nouns, some adjectives…

Another thing that I like about the book is that the story can be related to the pupils ‘personal experience. Because they could feel like the baby owl when they get lost and they can´t find their mother. And for this reason they would understand more easily the story, because they identify with baby owl and it is a way to pay more attention.

But I am scared of concentrating on the story and forget the listeners. For this reason I think the best way to interact with the audience is by doing questions like: what do you think is going to happen? Or How would he be feeling now?

STEPS TO PREPARE

When finally I chose and found the book and I have it physically, I began to read it in silence and searching some words that I don´t know how to pronounce properly.

When I finished it I began to do some annotations about some ideas of how can I do a storytelling with it. I thought about: the introduction, how to participate with the audience, the best way to finish.

Then I begin to read it aloud whit some intonation and sense of drama. I practice it with the brainstorming’s sheet next to me and I was writing some ideas during it.

When I learnt the structure of the story I wrote it in a paper and I continue practicing, this time focusing on the pictures and how I can show them to the audience. Because I think that in this book the pictures are so important and they really help you to understand the story.

The most difficult think to me was thinking about the best way to conclude because I watched some videos on internet about it, but I didn´t get any ideas. Then I thought that what I really want is for children to comment on the story till the end. And this book can help you do this. So I think that I am going to conclude my storytelling with a question.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

·        https://www.chrishaughton.com/