Reading To Your Kids #2: Try Avoiding the Text

Sometimes it's fun to deviate a little bit from the exact printed words on the page and tell a story your own way.  It's good for a child to hear the same story told in different ways.  They learn the skill of re-telling which is crucial for academic and social success.  Besides, when you read the same book OVER and OVER and OVER again, we parents sometimes require a little change of pace.  It's essential to our sanity!  My son is a little obsessed with Berenstain Bears books right now.  They are fun and they teach great morals - but sheesh - sometimes they seem way too long!  So sometimes I shorten it up.  I'm modeling how to summarize stories for him - so it's a win-win!

Did you know there is research that shows that wordless picture books help readers "understand the elements of story structure, develop visual literacy, think and write creatively, and cultivate language and narrative abilities"? (Masters Program in Library and Information Sciences).  This <----- about="" articles="" books.="" great="" has="" link="" other="" p="" picture="" related="" research="" some="" to="" wordless="">
There are lots of great wordless picture books out there.  My friend Lynn did a post about some of them last month.  Check it out here.

One of my favorite books isn't technically wordless per se, but it has very limited words and the pictures are so much fun!  It can create so much great discussion!  The book is Good Night Gorilla and it's a favorite among all the kids I work with.  It'll probably come up again in this series when we talk about inferencing.