Book Sharing 2
Book sharing is more than just reading a book to your child. It is an interaction between yourself and your child, where you both talk about the book.
The key to book sharing is you are both involved and having fun!
Some strategies for book sharing:
Ask questions: While you are sharing a book, you can ask your child questions. You can ask questions about something they can see in the pictures or hear from the words. These questions might be about the characters they can see, what the characters are doing and where the characters are.
For example: “who can you see in this picture? What is the giraffe doing? Where is the rabbit?)
You can also ask questions that require your child to link information. These questions will be harder for your child to answer and may require you to help by providing some think-alouds (e.g., I think …). You might ask questions about how the character feels, what might happen next in the story and how the character might solve their problem.
For example: “How do you think the giraffe feels? What might happen on the next page? How do you think the giraffe will get out of the mud?”
Try and avoid asking multiple questions that require a yes/no response. Avoid questions that might be too hard and use think-alouds to model the answer if needed and then move on. Remember not to ask too many questions – have a balance of making comments and asking questions to keep the interaction fun.
Pausing: Waiting for a few seconds gives your child time to process information and take a turn during book sharing. You can pause before or after turning a page, when something exciting is happening, or after asking a question. You can pause by waiting for a few seconds, look expectant, and watch your child to see what they are interested in.
Speech Pathology Team