Facilitated Reading Using Story books and Event Pictures

adapted from The Source for Early Literacy Development, LinguiSystems, Inc.
prepared by Elizabeth Tracz, M.E.D., B.A., volunteer partner

* These steps and routines can be used for everyday activities, routine discussions, and other concept lessons.

1. Select an appropriate book.
2. Divide the story into event segments that allow for discussion and elaboration of one or two events.
   Why?
   • Allows time to discuss and develop implicit and explicit meanings and relationships from pictures and words.
   • Allows child to participate in story construction
   • Allows teacher to discover what the child already knows. Able to see if the child can understand what is implied from the words or from the expressions on the characters.
3. Determine to focus of the story.
   • Develop new concepts for each new event.
   • Points should be critical to the story’s meaning (characters, actions, implied info like emotions and thoughts)
   • Find those ahead of time to lead the discussion and vocabulary that you are going to need to introduce and use.
4. Assemble props.
• With early developmental reading levels props increase understanding and participation.
• These can be picture cut outs or actual objects.
5. Conduct facilitated reading.
• First reading established general information
• Each successive reading is critical to increasing the child’s level of participation in story-construction.

Goals for Repeated Readings

Repeated readings of the same books are important to encourage the development of the concepts and vocabulary that the book uses. Repeated readings also allow for increased participation of the child with the book and the construction of the story, the retelling and predicting skills that are involved. You are able to engage further and further in more literate, language based activities using the text in different ways after the initial reading and understanding of the text.

1. Establish relationships on the page.
   • Identify people, objects, and actions.
2. Re-establish and solidify information from the previous reading.
   • Have the child retell elements of the story.
   • Increase the use of open-ended questions to help determine what the child knows and what needs to be clarified.
   • End each page with a summary of the event represented in the picture.
3. Expand the information that was established in the two previous readings by including more detail and going beyond the pictures and the text.
   • Develop unfamiliar vocabulary
   • Include personal experiences.
   • Ask more semantically-complex questions that include motives, causes, interpretations of feelings and predictions.
4. Develop print awareness by directing the child’s afternoon to the printed text.
   • Point out words and letters on the page.
   • Find the letter that begins the child’s name.
   • Count the number of words on the page or letters in a word.
   • Discuss long versus short vowels.
   • Encourage the child to read the page aloud.

Strategies to Facilitate Early Reading

Reading books with children is a natural adult-child activity that facilitates language and literacy development. This routine provides language and early reading skills and allows children to actively participate in asking and answering questions, introducing topics, and giving feedback.

1. Focusing Strategies: Direct the child’s attention to the book, pictures to help maintain child’s attention.
   • Prepatory Set: Established topic, content, focuses the reading. Point to pictures, introduce repeated phrases for older students, say something to describe the even represented.

     “Look, a picnic!” or “They’re at school.”

   • Physical proximity: involves the position and use of the book in relation to the child. Bring book to child, all child to reach out for the book, hold within easy view, point to the pictures, point to words as you read them.
   • Paraphrase: Reword the text right after reading it.
2. Elicitation Strategies: Help the child express what he or she understands about the story and encourage active participation in the reading.
   • Cloze procedure: provide a partial utterance with a fill-in-the blank for the child to complete.
   • Use gestures or pantomime: helps to prompt child’s participation with nonverbal cues (points, touches, reenactments, ask child to act out or demonstrate expressions.
   • Give phonemic cue: give initial sound or syllable of the word “Look at his big /f/_____.” (-eet, feet)
   • Ask a binary choice question: A question that has two choices.

     Label: “Is it a car or a truck?” “ Do you see cats or dogs?”
     Describe: “ Is he eating or drinking?”
     Interpret: “Is the clown happy or sad?”
     Predict: “Will he run away or stay?”

   • Ask a continuant question: A question that asks for specific information.

     “Who/What is that?” “Where are they going?” “What is he doing?”

   • Relational tie: Lead them to provide more information.

     Child: touches the lion on the page
     Adult: Oh! Sharp teeth and….
     Child: touches the lion’s tail
     Child: The lion is roaring.
     Adult: Because…
     Child: He’s mad.

   • Offer Semantic cue: to define or give synonyms for words like “tiny is another word for little.”
   • Ask Comprehension or Summarization question: check for understanding of all parts of the story. Child restates in his own words.

     “Show me what Sammy is doing.”
     “What happened to Sammy?”
     “How does Sammy feel about losing the game?”
     “Why is Sammy mad?”
     “Tell me about the story we just read.”

3. Feedback Strategies: follow a child’s comments and acknowledge, add to or refine child’s behaviors.
   • Expand or reward: Respond to the child’s comment using a more mature form of the remark, correct articulation or make grammar more complex.

     Child: points to lion
     Adult: Lion.
     Child: Lion.
     Adult: You’re right. That is a lion.

   • Extend or link: Link one idea of the story to the next idea or comment to similarities to their own lives.
   • Request clarification: Help child refine his or her message by showing, repeating, or rewording information that was not understood.
   • Negate and clarify: Let the child know when information is inaccurate and to help the child correct inaccuracies. Use negation cautiously and carefully.

     Child: (pointing to cow) That’s a dog.
     Adult: No that’s a cow. See, it has pointy horns and hooves.