Making Literature Come Alive for Preschoolers - Essay Example

Making Literature Come Alive For Preschoolers Witnessing how literature affects children’s growth and development is one of the exciting tasks of being a preschool teacher. A literature program that addresses important goals in all areas of children’s development is essential in motivating children to learn the concepts and skills they need to learn at a particular stage. As a new preschool teacher, I intend to create an ideal effective developmentally appropriate program to enhance my students’ knowledge and skills through literatre. A teacher needs to be knowledgeable in choosing the appropriate literature for a particular age group and the activities that may supplement it. There is an abundance of story titles out in the market. However, it is important for a teacher to choose the most appropriate ones that truly meet the criteria for overall development of children. Books that focus on repetition are good choices, especially for toddlers who need to master their language. The repetitive lines give children the opportunity to participate in the story by saying them out loud when the story calls for it. Another point for story selection is how the book revolves around the needs of the specific children the teacher is working with (Giorgin & Glazer, 2008). For instance, very young children welcome stories that empower the characters that are limited in their skills because of their young age. A character who is considered “too little” to do many things may still have a healthy self-esteem by being able to set the table or change his own shirt. The characters in the story may be in situations that are relatable to the children. Simple plots such as going to school for the first time, managing to be friends with bullies, accepting the responsibility of being a sibling to a new baby or learning a new skill such as riding a bicycle capture the interest of children. Of course, the stories need to have a positive theme and a significant lesson to learn. The words used must be simple and understandable (Brewer, 2002) Giorgin & Glazer (2008) have identified the goals and strategies of children’s literature to support various areas of their development. The goals should support children’s language, intellectual, personality, social and moral, and aesthetic and creative development. The goals in quotation marks have been adapted from Giorgin & Glazer’s (2008) book. These reflect my philosophy on children’s learning and development. For language development, I want to adapt Giorgin & Glazer’s (2008) goal, “Children will communicate effectively in oral, written and visual formats”. I want my children to develop good communication skills such as asking and answering questions about the story or sharing related experiences with the class. Another goal I have for this literature program is “Children will learn to read”. Exposing children to literature is one way of helping them learn to read. They not only learn to read words and sentences, but they also learn comprehension skills in doing so. Intellectually, I want the children in my class to “continue to acquire new concepts and to refine those already held”. Using stories to teach a particular concept is very effective in stimulating interest in the topic. I also agree with Giorgin & Glazer’s (2008) goal, “Children will develop skill in a variety of thinking processes”. This would encompass logical thinking, imaginative thinking, critical-thinking and problem solving. I believe reading stories to children at a very young age trains their minds to be critical and creative. I believe stories help shape children’s personalities. To enhance the development of their personality my goal is that “Children will recognize that everyone expresses emotions in different ways.” Literature is an effective way to teach children that everyone is unique. Characters in stories may possess different traits and may express their behaviors and feelings in a variety of ways. Embracing diversity needs to be learned early so children grow up without prejudice. Meeting the goals of social and moral development of children comes naturally in an effective literature program. Stories with positive values and themes clearly communicate the goal that “Children will engage in prosocial behavior”. These encourage children to behave in appropriate ways. It teaches positive values that guide them in dealing with others. Another goal is “Children will judge the appropriateness of specific behaviors and predict possible consequences of such behaviors.” Being constantly exposed to value-laden stories train children to have good judgment as to what is the right thing to do in certain situations. It also helps them predict consequences of the characters’ decisions and behaviors. Finally, I intend to emphasize the goal that “Children will engage competently in group activities.” I want my children to learn actively with other children. Follow up activities for stories may sometimes include group activities such as role-playing or group dynamics. These activities further shape children’s social and moral development. Of course, not to be forgotten is children’s aesthetic and creative development. The literature program I want to create will have the goal that “Children will respond favorably to diverse styles of art and music.” Some classic children’s songs are in story form such as “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”, “There Was An Old Woman Who Swallowed a Fly” or “The Wheels on The Bus”. Children will be amazed at how such stories can be in music form and vice versa. Knowledge of familiar songs set to story form enables children to sing while reading. This helps them have stronger retention of the story and reading of words. The goal that “Children will use their imaginations as they participate in art, music and movement” is easy to meet since children’s stories stimulate the imagination. Children feel free to move in ways they think are appropriate to the story. Knowing how a character moves or speaks can guide children in how they portray the role in their role-playing activities. A literature program includes activities to supplement the stories discussed in class. These activities should enhance the literature and not detract from it (Giorgin & Glazer, 2008). These activities must further ingrain in the children the lessons the literature aims to teach them. Hence, the story itself inspires the activities planned. For example, an activity that follows a story on camping may be setting up a blanket in the corner of the room to be a “tent” where the children can “camp”. The activities should be developmentally appropriate to the needs and abilities of the children. As an example, the story of Noah’s Ark is presented with activities and teaching strategies to support growth in various areas of development. Noah’s Ark is one of the most-loved bible stories of children. The story is rich in concepts and values. Children get to learn about different animals, family members, transportation, weather, and obedience. It is laden with actions, colors and sounds that children can re-enact and enjoy (Baxter, n.d.). In doing activities related to the story, children retain the concepts and skills learned better. In language development, the Teacher should motivate the children by asking interesting questions such as: “Have you ever experienced riding a gigantic ship before?”; “Do you know what a flood is?”. Showing the cover of the storybook may whet the children’s appetite for the story. Teacher may ask the children to tell something about what they see on the picture. After the story, the children may draw the scenes from the story and then tell something about it while teacher writes the children’s verbalizations verbatim. For intellectual development, listening to stories are worthwhile activities for children. It is an essential part of literacy development, as children gain comprehension, language and reading skills. It opens the imaginations to broader horizons and takes children to journeys around the world without physically leaving their seats. Reading, comprehension and critical-thinking skills are developed through constant exposure to storybooks. They get to arrange a logical sequence of events, learn cause and effect, note details or absurdities in some stories. The class can even come up with their own version of story-endings. An example is “the rain in Noah’s story can get to be so heavy, floods lifted the ark way up to the rainbow” Sequencing the scenes according to which happened first, next and last will help the children retain the story better. Stick drawings of the scenes on the wall in order after asking the children to arrange them in sequence. In developing their personalities, “creating and reading stories with children which show children dealing with threats to their well-being positively and successfully can release their coping skills,” (Honig, 2000, p.47). For example, with the story Noah’s Ark, one activity would be to brainstorm what they could do in a threatening situation such as a great flood. They may think up of ways to help themselves and if they are safe enough, how they can help flood victims? This is one way to use literature to teach practical lessons to children. Children need to understand the events in the story and approximate how the characters feel (e.g. when Noah was building the ark and people were laughing at him; when they saw a rainbow in the sky, etc.). In terms of social and moral development, this needs to be processed with the class and asked how they would feel if someone did the same to them. This would help the children internalize when they play a role in a play they can do after the story where they could dramatically express themselves in the role. In developing children’s aesthetics and creativity through literature, music may be incorporated. For example, in the story Noah’s Ark, one simple activity would be singing the song “The Wise Old Man Built His House Upon the Rock” and then the class may discuss what happened when the rains came to create a great flood. Another activity to support aesthetic and creative development is doing a pantomime of the story. When the children have mastered the story, let them try it using plain mime, without using any dialogue or sounds, thereby merely depending on their actions to communicate their feelings and ideas to the audience. Choose music that would suit the mood of each scene and let children move to it. Another activity would be to let the children present the story of Noah’s Ark in mime and music form from beginning to end, without Teacher’s narration, but only relying on music as their cue. The abundance of ideas that could flow in a teacher’s mind once she sets off to planning a rich literature program can be overwhelming. Exciting as it is to bombard children with stories and their corresponding activities, a teacher should be discerning in the implementation of her program (Brewer, 20020. She needs to make sure that the children are developmentally ready for all the activities planned. Since young children are concrete learners, a number of materials are necessary in the implementation of this program such as flannel boards, art materials, music, etc. to hold the interest of the children. These materials must be prepared beforehand so time is not wasted and the program runs smoothly (Shalaway, 1998). All children must be encouraged to participate in the activities. It would be best if each child would experience not only group reading of stories but one on one reading with an adult as well. Individual attention will go a long way in determining if the child has really gained the skills aimed and if the goals are met (Shalaway, 1998). Quiet listening and perceiving and active participation balance out the activities. These should be both educational and enjoyable – a perfect mix for a developmentally-appropriate program for very young children. Having exposed the children to literature and completing the planned activities that supplement it does not conclude a literature program. Giorgin & Glazer (2008) posit that a successful literature program produces notable changes in children’s behaviors and attitudes toward books. One is children’s apparent interest in books. The Reading corner in the classroom becomes a-buzz with eager readers all the time. They are either quietly reading a book or enjoying it with other children. The children often use new words they have learned from the stories read to them in their conversations. Being more interested in literature makes children want to be authors. They excitedly make their own books by drawing some pictures and “writing” the stories on the page. They also enjoy dictating the words to their teachers who write the words in verbatim. The teacher should evaluate if the intended goals in all areas of development are met in the duration of the literature program. Writing down behavioral observations of the children will greatly help teachers in such evaluation. Making literature come alive for young children is a lot of hard work for a dedicated, creative and industrious teacher. However, I truly believe that all my efforts will be worth it when the literature program I create will strongly support the overall development of the children in my preschool class. Knowing that I am partly responsible for such development is something that makes teaching so rewarding for me. Being able to touch one child’s life with literature is indeed a noble task. References Baxter, L. (n.d.) Noah’s Ark. Let’s Play Series. Lion Books Brewer, J. (2002) Early Childhood Education. Allyn & Bacon Giorgin, C. & Glazer, J. (2008). Literture for Young Childern: Supporting Emergent Literacy, Ages 0-8 (6th edition). Boston: Pearson Educational, Inc. Honig, A.S. (2000) “Promoting Creativity in Young Children.” Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Board of Advisors for Scholastic, Inc. (New York, NY, May 19, 2000). Shalaway, L. (1998) Learning to Teach. Scholastic Professional Books. Read More