Shared Reading of Predictable Books (continued)

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In addition to books, many teachers write favorite poems, chants, songs, and finger plays on long sheets of paper and these become some of the first things children can actually read. Most teachers teach the poem, chant, song, or finger play to the children first. Once the children have learned to say, chant, or sing it, they then are shown what the words look like. The progression to reading is a natural one and children soon develop the critical "of course, I can read" self-confidence. Once children can read the piece, many teachers copy it and send it home for the child to read to parents and other family members.

After the book has been read, enjoyed, and reread in a variety of ways, most children will be able to read (or pretend-read) most of the book. This early "I can read" confidence is critical to emerging readers, and the shared book experience as described is a wonderful way to foster this. When engaging in shared reading with predictable Big Books, try to simulate what would happen in the home as a child delights in having a favorite book read again and again. First, you focus on the book itself, on enjoying it, rereading it, talking about it, and often acting it out. As you do this, you develop concepts and oral language. When most of the children can pretend-read the book, you focus their attention on the print. Provide writing activities related to the book and help children learn print conventions, jargon, and concrete words. When children know some concrete words, you use these words to begin to build phonemic awareness and letter–sound knowledge.

Children Understand What Reading Is for as they Engage in Shared Reading

As children join in the shared reading of a predictable book, they experience what reading is. They know what it feels like and sounds like and, most importantly, they develop the confidence that they can learn to read. Think of shared reading experiences as the training wheels on a bike. Training wheels allow a child to get the feel of the bike, to steer and stop, to ride faster and slower, without also having to concentrate on keeping the bike upright. Once the child develops confidence in bike riding and some bike riding skills, the training wheels are removed and the child rides without them—but often with a parent running alongside the bike! Soon, the child will ride the bike completely on his or her own. Shared reading allows children to experience reading before they have all the print tracking and decoding skills to read on their own. As they develop these skills, they will move toward being independent readers and will no longer need the training wheels support provided by shared reading.

Children Develop Print Concepts as They Engage in Shared Reading

Once you and the children have read and reread a favorite predictable Big Book several times, you can use that Big Book to help them develop print concepts, including some important jargon such as word and sentence and tracking print from left to right. The most concrete activity you can use to build these print concepts is called Sentence Builders. In Sentence Builders, you write all the words and punctuation marks from several pages of a book on separate index cards. The cards are distributed to various children and these children build a sentence by matching their card to the words and punctuation marks in the book.