Language and Print Together: The Development of Storybook Reading

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When we read a riveting storybook to children who are age three or four, they often ask us to read it again. What happens if we ask the child to read that favorite storybook back to us? With a little encouragement, most children will pretend-read the book, and when they do, they are demonstrating for us their conception of what reading is. Sulzby (1985) has documented stages or advancing strategies that young children use when they are pretend-reading storybooks. Here they are, from simplest to most advanced.

Picture Naming

In the earliest of the book-reading strategies, the child points at the picture, shouts the name of the depicted object, then points to the next page and does the same thing. As Sulzby notes, such a child is repeating a ritual she has been through many times with a parent or other adult reader, who often opens a book, points to a picture, says, "What's that?" waits for the child's answer, then says, "Right! That's a ________, "

Verbal Storytelling, with Conversation

Slightly later, sometime around the age of four or five, the child will point to the pictures and then weave an oral story around them, in a conversation with the adult. This isn't a stand-alone story yet; it still relies on an adult for support. And it is cued by the pictures, rather than by the print on the page or the exact words the child remembers from the adult's reading.

Verbal Storytelling, without Conversation

At a slightly later time, often in his fifth year, a child will now tell a story as he pages through the book from picture to picture. The story is dearly a told story, and if he pretend-reads this book more than once, he will make no attempt to keep the wording the same.

Talking like a Book

Still later, the child will take on a sing-song, rather distant voice that sounds like a reader—sometimes even complete with stumbling over words—as she creates a monologue to accompany the pictures. Amazingly, she is still not actually reading the words—if you look over her shoulder you will see that her monologue bears little resemblance to what is on the page.

Refusal to Read

At a still later stage, when asked to read the book aloud to us, the child will become troubled by the request and tell us she can't. Why? Because she doesn't know how to read the words. This is actually a breakthrough. Not knowing the words didn't keep her from pretend-reading the book before. But now she seems to have realized that in order to read a book, you have to look at the print and know how to pronounce it as spoken language.

Reading a Word or Two

Still later, when you ask the child to pretend-read the book to you, she will look for words she knows and read them aloud.

This fascinating sequence of strategies shows the child moving from a series of isolated verbal responses to pictures, to a woven verbal text-first with the support of conversation, and then without support, followed by a phase of talking like a book, and then leading to the realization that in order to really read, one must know how to bring to life exactly the words that are written on the page. Once that last discovery is made, the child is ready to match the words she expects with the words on the page (and, doubtless bringing into play other knowledge of print, such as the concept of word and knowledge of letters) and read a few words aloud. She has gone from playful imitation of the whole of reading to a careful study of the details. Bit by bit, and especially if she is given books written on an accessible level, she will be able to return to the whole, as she reads the whole book aloud—even if that moment comes after she has left your preschool center.