In Section 5 of this course you will focus on how you can develop children’s early reading skills through storybooks. In this section we are going to look at making use of stories in the classroom. Having completed Activity 2.6, you may wish to download other stories you particularly like to use with your classes.
Research has shown that children need to read at least 42 storybooks in a year to reinforce their developing literacy skills. Your storybook collection could include books, stories you have written down or freely available stories like those on the ASb.
When reviewing your collection of storybooks, think about whether they include these features (different storybooks will emphasise or include different features):
(We recommend you spend 10 minutes on this activity)
Stories can be retold and extended in many ways. In your study notebook, write down the different ways you use stories to support children’s early literacy development.
You can help children to:
Many teachers make their own storybooks by writing out stories on chart paper or old cardboard. Teachers also invite people from the local community into the classroom to tell stories rooted in the local culture. In the next activity you will explore resources that provides examples of teachers who did these activities.
(We recommend you 7spend 30 minutes on this activity)
The TESSA website has resources for teachers with classroom activities to support reading and literacy, as well as a set of ‘key resources’ that explain some of the active teaching approaches that you can use.
Spend some time exploring the literacy materials and the key resources. All the resources are ‘open educational resources’ (OER), which means that they are free and can be copied and adapted.
Share some of the activities you find with a colleague. They will be useful to you later on in the course when you are planning reading activities.
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