Picture Book Activities that I Recommend.
Book Selection
I can often be seen in school libraries and bookshops, leafing through the myriad texts and stories. More often, I'm seated in a crumpled huddled mass on the ground, between aisles, reading picture books.
How do I know which grade level a picture book is?
A storybook's readability level is reasonably easy to calculate. There are several readability calculators available on the internet. The one I'm most familiar with is the Fry Readability Graph. Please follow the link for an explanation on how it works. Once a text has been selected for a particular child the best indicator of its suitability is to see how well the child reads the book and whether they enjoy it or not. And by the way, I've learnt that enjoyment is a big factor in deciding whether I should continue using a text with a student. I've sometimes used picture book activities along with excellent books with attrative illustrations, richly detailed language, studded with fascinating characters, yet has completely failed to engage the child. The child's response may be, "this is soooo boring," or "when does this story finish?" My response is usually 'Wha...? But this story is so great. Here's why...' One of the strengths of shared book reading is that you can use your enthusiasm and knowledge of the story to engage the student, or students. But sometimes it's simply best to choose another story that will engage a particular student. Find a hobby or particular interest that the child may have (eg. motorbikes, horses, etc) and select a book that is engaging to that student, based on their particular interest. Return from Picture Book Activities to Speechlanguage-Resources homepage
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