Children's Literature Strategies
Course
Strategies with Longer Works [6:26]
Now, let's focus on strategies that we can employ with children's literature for older students in grades three, four, five, and six, especially novels, chapter books, and longer works for kids who are just becoming more fluent readers
So first, let's talk about words. Novels are full of words. And sometimes their length is a little intimidating to kids, sometimes they're introduced to new words that they're not familiar with. And so you need to make sure that you allow kids to identify unfamiliar vocabulary and figure out those words. Your fluent reader will do so automatically with context. In fact a lot of us as good readers, we ignore a word we don't know and we just keep going and figure it will become clearer eventually. With kids who are still struggling, we sometimes need to help them identify when they don't know a word and teach them a strategy for figuring that word out. So one of the things I like to do, which I actually borrowed from a children's book author, is to draw the words. This came-- actually a variety of authors have been doing this kind of thing but one of my favorite examples is from Janet Tashjian. Her last name is spelled T-A-S-H-J-I-A-N. And she's actually created a number of novels for young readers.
The one that I'm going to focus on is My Life As a Book which is kind of like the Wimpy Kid books which is also filled with little images, illustrations, and doodles. But in My Life As a Book, the protagonist of the story actually draws a little stick figure cartoon images throughout the book just in the margins explaining key vocabulary words that are new to him or unfamiliar. And so that book itself is a great model for what kids can also do. But we may not be able to draw in the actual books because that might be library books or textbooks. But they can keep a vocabulary log or journal with these doodles and drawings. And they can see that this again interactive approach where they're reading but they're also doodling and drawing at the same time, helps them hone in when there's a word they've encountered that they just don't know. And then what do you do with it.
So you write the word and then look it up, using a dictionary, thesaurus, computer, iPad, whatever tools are at their disposal. And then draw a picture rather than write a definition, draw a picture of a stick figure who is exhibiting what that word means. So for example, if the word is sloppy, then you might have a stick figure boy or girl, and you might have trash and doodley dust all around him or her. Or if it's a word like fainting, they might be lying down prone next to a bag or a chair. Very simple little doodley drawings that simply suggest the action or visualize the word in some way. It might even be very idiosyncratic, something that only that student would understand. But that act of stopping, writing the word, looking it up, and then drawing a quick picture, is a really good way for them to visualize and cement in their minds what the word means. And it could be an opportunity for them to teach one another. What word did you look up? What word did you look up? And they share their explorations and their drawings. But it's the visualizing of the word. And perhaps it's because it also helps kids use a different way, not just words but images that help them learn something unfamiliar.
I love this approach and I've seen a lot of kids have a lot of fun with it too, in fact once you give them permission to do this, they'll do it on their own. It doesn't even have to be instructional, they'll just incorporate this into their own repertoire, this is what I do with the word I don't know and thus learn it.
Second, I'd like to talk about the importance of discussion and literature circles. it's really important that kids have an opportunity to talk about what they're reading at regular intervals. Because these longer works are more challenging for them. It requires a longer attention span, a longer focus, through a topic, through a character, through a plot development, over pages and pages. So talking about what they're reading, whether they keep it in their own written journal--a lot of people use literary journals--but even more so I think that verbal exchange with a partner or a small group or a literature circle or even an online book club, a place where they can talk about what they're reading and what they're thinking about what they're reading is a really important part for young kids who are developing as readers, to use that oral foundation because they're good talkers. Kids love to talk. We're always trying to get them to not talk so much in school because we need to focus, we need to learn together. But permission to talk about what you're reading is a way to build on what they're already good at, and then help them think about what they're learning. When we say something out loud we realize, "Oh, that's what I thought, I didn't even know I was thinking that until I shared that with you."
So the literary discussion is not just a free for all but a focus to talking about our reading that is really essential for third, fourth, fifth grade students who are developing their confidence as readers, reading longer works, reading more sophisticated, complicated works, books that have a flashback, or books that leave you guessing, or books that are just a little more challenging than what they read when they were much younger. So that exercise talking with peers, with the teacher in small groups, is a really important part of building that skill and keeping that momentum of reading going.
Another activity that bridges the both the oral language and the written language is Reader's Theater. I love this approach and I have used it a lot and I've had a lot of teachers and librarians who told me how much they love it. It's basically adding drama to reading but without any sort of formal preparation, with no costumes or staging or scenery. It's simply classroom based or library based theater, where you take a book that they've already read so you don't do this as a cold reading. This is after we've read a book as a class or after a small group has read a book together or maybe even just one person has read the book but they loved it and they wanted to share it. And you choose an excerpt. Now that would be just a chapter or a few pages from the book, you don't read the whole book this way typically, I mean you could, but Reader's Theater then simply takes that passage or that excerpt, and you give the parts that are dialogue to individual students, they volunteer, preferably. And they read those out loud while you as the leader or a fluent student reads the narrative, the part that's not dialogue. So it's almost like the book becomes a script.
And then just from where you're seated or if you want to gather those volunteers at the front, you simply read that passage, that excerpt out loud, in parts, rather than just one person reading the whole thing out loud. And whoever takes the character role sort of adds some emotion and some expression to the reading so it becomes a little bit more theatrical. And you can really--it's a simple process but you can really hear the story come alive through multiple voices, reading multiple characters in ways that are more conversational, more theatrical, more engaging. It's so much fun, you can even videotape that and then share that again later at an open house or with another class. Because it becomes a kind of performance that really makes the book come alive and makes students feel like they've really been part of something. They really enjoy that process. And I found they often want to do it over and over again with different volunteers taking different parts in that same passage.
Reader's Theater is just a terrific opportunity to promote oral reading and fluency in reading. Give them a moment to practice their lines so that they don't feel too self-conscious. But I found it to be a very successful strategy with novels in older kids.
This lesson is about supporting students' reading of works longer than picture books, with an emphasis on novels. As Vardell explains, the process of reading and understanding a novel requires students to apply an array of skills, chief among them vocabulary, comprehension, and fluency. To strengthen students' independent skills in attending to and learning new vocabulary in their reading, Vardell recommends that students establish a routine of looking up unfamiliar words and drawing an accompanying picture or doodle in a journal in order to strengthen their familiarity and understanding of new words.
In this exercise, you will practice "vocabulary doodling."
- Read a 2-3 paragraph selection from The Read-Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease, recommended in the Resources of this workshop.
- Select five or six words for which to create visual representations. To practice the sequence that students would follow, first look up the words in a dictionary, thesaurus, or e-reader tool.
- On paper, draw a simple picture or stick figure to help illustrate the meaning of the words you selected.
- Think of a vocabulary-rich text read by students in a particular grade level at your school. Select a passage from this text and try the vocabulary doodle approach. Consider opportunities for lesson in which you teach or co-teach students to try this strategy, modeling with the words from your practice attempt.
The Read-Alound Handbook by Jim Trelease. Excerpts are available here: http://www.trelease-on-reading.com/rah-contents.html.
MLA Citation
Morris, Rebecca J. "Children's Literature Strategies: Vocabulary Visuals." School Library Connection, November 2024, schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/Course/2063935?learningModuleId=2063931&topicCenterId=2247903.
Entry ID: 2122877
Additional Resources
About the Author
MLA Citation
Vardell, Sylvia M. "Children's Literature Strategies. Strategies with Longer Works [6:26]." School Library Connection, ABC-CLIO, May 2017, schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/Course/2063935?learningModuleId=2063931&topicCenterId=2247903.
https://schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/Course/2063935?learningModuleId=2063931&topicCenterId=2247903
Entry ID: 2063935