Choosing Books for Children

"Babies don't learn language because they're supposed to, or even because they have to, but because they're surrounded by it. Similarly, children don't learn how to read because they're supposed to but because they're surrounded by people who read and things that must be read. Literature is the road to literacy. "

Betsy Hearne. Choosing Books for Children. University of Illinois Press, 1999.


Basics: A wide variety of books for young children can be borrowed from your public library or purchased.

1. Board books, made of cardboard, cloth, or plastic with bright, familiar pictures are sturdy, resilient and fairly chew-resistant are perfect books for babies and toddlers.
2. Pop-up and lift-the-flap books encourage exploration.
3. Alphabet, counting, and concept books usually have bold, graphic pictures which relate to the concept but sometimes may also have a story line.
4. Predictable books include those that are familiar and have a known story or situation like "The Three Bears." They also include those with cumulative or repetitive patterns such as "The House That Jack Built." Books with strong picture clues like "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" and those in which the child may easily fill in words or rhymes are also predictable.
5. Big books can be used to share picture books with a group of children.
6. Beginning leveled books have simple vocabulary, a few words to a page, direct link between the words and pictures, use natural sentence pattern and have topics familiar to children As books increase in level the vocabulary expands, there is more print, and the pictures are more complicated. Literary language is introduced in the highest levels.

 

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