Multicultural Literature in Diverse Classrooms
Jack and Jill Learning Center is a high quality learning center that serve children 6 month to 12 years. Our facility is a warm, safe, and clean environment. The Corporation has been in business for 10 year.
About Us
We have been in operation for ten years. Our facilty has been nominate forthe best serving children award for the last 5 years. We are licensed by the Mississippi State Department of Health. We are also USDA aproved to help serve your child a healthy breakfast, lunch, and snacks. We offer finiacial service to help with tution as well.
Explain the centers scope of services including: Ages served, hours of service, location of center and tuition or fees.
Our center serve children ages 6 months to 12 years old. Our hours of operation is from 7 a.m to 6 p.m Monday- Friday. We are located at 2432 West Blvd, Clarksdale, Ms. 38614. Tuition is $375 a week. Our late fee is $50 after one week. If late paying tuition over 3 times within a month can result in yiur child being removed from the program. Program Structure
Establish daily structure including a curriculum unit plan, a sample lunch and snack menu, and explanation of your curriculum and developmentally appropriate practices
Monday
B-apple, cereal, milk
L- pizza, oranges, corn, milk
S crackers, cheese, milk
Tuesday
B- banana, milk, juice, oatmeal
L- ham&cheese sandwich , bread, milk, peas
S- pretzels, milk
Wednesday
B- applesauce, milk, toast
L- mashed potatoes & gravy, Salisbury steak, jello, carrots, milk
S- goldfish crackers, juice
Thursday
B-pancakes, juice, milk, syrup
L- hotdogs, coleslaw, milk, fruit
S- graham crackers, slice apples, milk
Friday
B- sausage, egg, milk, juice, peaches
L- hamburger, mandarin oranges, milk, lettuce, tomato, French fries
S- carrots, milk
· Philosophy
Our philosophy at the Jack and Jill Learning Center is that each child will learn regardless of their different learning styles. They will gain knowledge in both academic and socially. We will prepare curriculum that will fit the needs of all children. Our curriculum will be will provides teachers with strategies that will ensure that all children are getting the necessary skills that will allow them to learn at their own pace. We will create standards that will help teachers deliver quality teaching and hands on activities. All students will be given a fair chance at learning and excelling. Our teacher will attend monthly workshops to make sure that they will continue to gain knowledge on how to teach different learning styles for all children.
· Outline the philosophy and focus of the program, including your chosen theory from Chapter 1 and construct your center’s philosophy based on this theory.
· Design a statement that demonstrates how your center will address each of the ten NAEYC Standards:
· Relationships
·
· Curriculum
· Teaching
· Assessment of Child Progress
· Health
· Teachers (how you support your staff)
· Families
· Community Relationships
· Physical Environment (indoors and out)
· Leadership and Management (summary of your most recent professional development experience)
The world of children’s books offers a rich and fascinating landscape for you to explore. No matter how old you are, you will find in children’sbooks moments of beauty, pleasure, humor, and information. In children’s books adult readers revisit old friends like Horton and Winnie-the-Pooh, and meet new ones like Olivia and Elephant and Piggie. But perhaps the most pleasurable and meaningful aspect of children’s literatureis the way it opens up the world for children. Our children today are growing up in a world of increasingly complex messages, delivered moreoften through screens than pages, but there is still something magical that happens when an adult shares a book with a child.
This book is written for the adults who are committed to sharing quality literature with children—parents, day-care workers, and early childhoodeducators. Its aim is to help you choose and use children’s books that will appeal to prereaders, new readers, and young readers from infantsto 8-year-olds. Children’s books bring the world to young children in fascinating and exciting ways, but it is the job of adults to ensure thatchildren have access to plenty of quality children’s books. Of all the things we do to help children grow and develop, sharing books with themand helping them learn to enjoy reading may be the most important, because it starts them on a path of endless possibility that they canexplore for the rest of their lives.
In this chapter, we will look at the many ways literature can benefit children and give an overview of the study of children’s literature, includingthe concept of multiliteracies. We will discuss what developmental stage theories and the theory of multiple intelligences tell us aboutdevelopmentally appropriate children’s literature. The chapter will conclude with descriptions of brick-and-mortar and online resources forchildren’s books, including major awards given to children’s books.
1.1 The Benefits of Children’s Literature
Imagine what it must be like to be a newborn: You’ve left a world of warmth, comfort, and consistency and have been thrust into a place ofunpredictable noises, bright lights, and comparatively rough handling. The regular heartbeat and soft sounds of the liquid environment that hasenveloped you for the past nine months are suddenly gone, replaced by electronic beeps, sharp bangs and clangs, and loud and unfamiliarvoices.
Remarkably, newborn infants do have some resources to cope with the strange environment in which they find themselves. Neurotypicalinfants can track a brightly colored ball as it passes in front of their eyes, and they can recognize a human face. If their hearing is functional,they will respond to a familiar voice, preferring a voice whose music they have heard while in the womb. They have instincts for sucking andvocalizing that prompt responses from adults. Thus, they already have many of the tools they need to begin the long process of ordering,understanding, interacting with, and manipulating their world.
However, as neuroscientists are quick to point out, all human infants are born prematurely, meaning that despite the nine months ofdevelopment in the womb, the human brain and body still have a long way to go in terms of developing neural connections and pathways thatcoordinate both thinking and moving. To become fully human, infants need to learn how to use language the way other people in their culturedo, how to read and interpret images and gestures, how to regulate their emotions and behaviors, how to communicate with others and takeup a meaningful place in that culture as individuals, how to find out things they don’t know, and how to participate in community activities andrituals.
This is where children’s literature comes in. Through storytelling, poetry, song, and printed texts, children learn
· how their culture is organized,
· what it values,
· how it differs from other cultures,
· how they can both assert and develop their individuality, and
· how they can become valued and responsible members of a community.
That seems like a lot of weight to put on children’s books, which on the surface may seem simple, sentimental, or sometimes even silly. Butthroughout this book, we will explore the richness of the interaction between children and quality literature. Children’s literature, through itsforms, its messages, and the conversations it inspires, helps children understand the complex world they have entered. It expands theircapacity to enjoy that world by providing pleasure. It may even help them change their world by stimulating their imaginations and developingtheir intellects.
Swimmy, by Leo Lionni,features a character who useshis physical difference to savehis friends.
Copyright © 1963, 1991, by KnopfChildren, from Swimmy by Leo Lionni.Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, animprint of Random House Children’sBooks, a division of Random House, Inc.
Consider, for instance, the picturebook
Swimmy
(1963), by Leo Lionni. Swimmy is the lone blackfish in a school of red ones. Besides being a different color, he is also a faster swimmer than hisfellow fish, which is why he alone escapes on that fateful day when the rest of his brothers andsisters are swallowed up by a larger fish. After the loss of his family, he swims around the ocean andmeets many wonderful and unique creatures, but he is lonely for his own kind. When he meets upwith a new school of small red fish, he joins them and teaches them that together they cancamouflage themselves in such a way as to scare off big fish—they mass into a big fish shapethemselves, with Swimmy as their black eye.
As children enjoy this story of a small fish who uses his intelligence and his physical difference tosolve a problem, they learn many things about the social organization of their world. They learn, forinstance, that big fish eat small ones and that this is a problem for small fish. They learn that beingdifferent can be hard but that it has its rewards. They learn that the world is full of strange andmysterious things that are worth finding out about. And finally, they learn that working together cansave them from danger. These messages are similar to other Lionni books, which often featurecharacters whose difference and special qualities are essential to the success of the group. Aschildren grow, they will face many pressures to talk, act, and think like everyone else, but Swimmy isaccepted for who he is because the group recognizes that they need him to be and think differentlythan they. His story expresses a core cultural value of accepting and honoring individual differences.
Different books offer different messages about a range of cultural values. Sometimes, thesemessages are explicit and easy to understand. Often, though, they are subtle, and child readersabsorb them unconsciously as they enjoy the story. One of the reasons it is important for parents,professional caregivers, and early childhood educators to study children’s literature is because children’s literature always teaches childrensomething about the world, and we need to be aware of what those lessons are. Because children have limited experience with the worldaround them, and because their brains are so active in taking in new information and making connections, they are remarkably open to boththe overt and the subtle messages embedded in the stories we share.
Explore and Reflect: Subtle Values in Children’s Stories
Many fairy tales of European origin end with the words “and they all lived happily ever after.” Think about the endings to”Cinderella,” “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” “Sleeping Beauty,” and “Beauty and the Beast.” What are the conditionsneeded for “happily ever after” in each story (for instance, marriage, castle, etc.)? What do these repetitive conditions teachchildren about what is necessary for their own “happily ever afters”? How have these children’s stories influenced your ownideas about what makes for a happy life?
1.2 What Do Children’s Literature Researchers Study?
There are many ways to go about the study of children’s literature. Literary researchers, for instance, study the literature itself. They might lookat books, folk stories, poems, and films from a historical perspective, asking why certain stories and poems become classics. Alternately, theymight look at form, that is, how the art and the words of children’s books invite children to read them, and how those forms have changed overtime. Still other literary researchers focus on the messages of children’s literature, as we just did with Swimmy, to try to determine how thesemessages are communicated to children through their books. They call these sorts of messages ideologies, which are the unconsciousbeliefs and values that underlie our behavior. Our cultural beliefs and values seem like common sense to us, when really they have beentaught to us through various means, including children’s literature, throughout our lifetimes.
Scholars in the fields of Education and Library and Information Sciences focus more on the interaction of children with books. They want toknow how to get children to engage with books so that they can meet educational and personal goals and enrich their lives through reading.Educators understand that children acquire literacy and literary understanding in stages, and they research how engagement with literaturehelps children progress through these stages. Librarians are committed to a practice they call a readers’ advisory, which aims to put the rightbook in the right person’s hand at the right time. In order to help children engage with books, teachers and librarians need to understandsomething about children’s preferences as well as have a broad knowledge of what sorts of books are available.
1.3 What Will You Study About Children’s Literature in This Book?
This book will introduce strategies from all of these different ways of looking at children’s literature, which includes not only printed books, butalso oral stories and poems, music, film, and digital media. In Chapter 2, you will see how the history of children’s literature reflects the ideassociety has had in different periods about who children are and what they need. You will learn how to analyze pictures and stories in Chapters3 and 4 so that you can assess them for quality. And throughout the book, you will explore how the interaction between adults, children, anddevelopmentally appropriate, quality literature enriches children’s lives.
Of course, one of the primary purposes of children’s literature is to help children learn to read. Learning to read, however, is much morecomplicated than simply knowing which marks on a page correspond to which sounds. In order to be truly literate, children must learn to makemeaning from texts and pictures, to transform the words on the page into mental images of places, characters, and things that move andinteract with one another. They need to connect causes and effects and problems and solutions, and they need to be able to follow paths ofgrowth and development as they unfold. As we move through the chapters of this book, we will think carefully about how children’s braindevelopment grows alongside their increasing language and literacy development. This introductory chapter will offer an overview of howthese factors interact, while Chapters 6–10 break down the interaction more precisely and suggest how to select and share developmentallyappropriate, quality literature with children at different stages of their reading development.
Additionally, in this first chapter we will explore the various resources available to help readers find good books. In studies that focus oncommunity and state literacy rates, researchers have found that access to many good books is the single most important factor affectingsuccessful literacy acquisition (McQuillan, 1998; Shin, 2004). Ensuring book-rich environments for all children should thus be a top priority forearly childhood educators. Throughout this book, we will discuss the types of books available for children and the appropriate ages at which tointroduce them.
By the end of this book, then, you should feel confident in your ability to find, select, and share quality, developmentally appropriateliterature with young children from birth to age 8.
What Does “Developmentally Appropriate” Mean?
“Developmentally appropriate” is a loaded term when it comes to describing literature for children. To assess whether a book isdevelopmentally appropriate, however, we need to understand how language development and literacy are connected and how learninghappens, but perhaps most importantly, we need to be attuned to children’s preferences and emotional concerns.
Children are more likely to enjoy reading if theyhave access to interesting literature thatcorresponds to the issues of their developmentalage.
Comstock Images/Thinkstock
It is tempting to rely solely on a mathematically based formula for assessingreading level and call that “developmentally appropriate.” Most publishers ofchildren’s books produce series of leveled readers, that is, books that have beenrun through a formula that calculates variables such as sentence length,percentage of difficult words, and average number of syllables per word. Whatthese formulae don’t take into account is reader interest and developmental age,which produce motivations or barriers that can often differ greatly from a simplisticassessment of reading level. For instance, Scholastic Inc., the largest publisher anddistributor of children’s books in the world, has a resource on their website calledthe Book Wizard, where you can enter the title of a book and obtain a reading levelfor that book. According to their leveling system, Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight has areading grade level equivalent of 4.4 (Twilight, n.d.). This means that 50% of allstudents in their fourth month of fourth grade have attained the reading levelnecessary for understanding the words and sentence structures of that book. Bycontrast, the interest level of the book is listed as grades 9–12. However, noconsideration beyond interest is given to the appropriateness of the content for thedevelopmental age of the child. For examples of the various formulae used todetermine readability levels, click
here
.
In this book, we take a holistic approach to determining developmental appropriateness by focusing on children’s preferences and theirdevelopmental concerns. We believe that while children need appropriate supports in learning to read, they are more likely to want to read ifthe literature they encounter is interesting to them, which means that it corresponds to the concerns of their developmental age. Moreover,they will stretch to more difficult texts if their prior experience with literature is engaging, meaningful, and satisfying. In Chapters 6–10 we focuson the kinds of texts most likely to correspond to abilities and preferences correlated with developmental age as well as where children are intheir literacy development. We also use these factors to suggest the most effective ways to share those texts with children to ensure that theyacquire fluency and confidence in reading.
Choosing Developmentally Appropriate Literature
1.4 Changing Definitions of Literacy
Literacy seems to have always been a vexed issue. Over the years, people have worried about how to teach it, who has access to it, how it isrelated to power and progress. Definitions of literacy have changed over time. For instance, in the early 19th century in America, the ability tosign one’s name was all it took to be considered literate. However, prior to that, beginning in the 1600s in the colonies, local schools supportedby their communities in New England fostered high levels of literacy in order for children to be able to read and understand the Bible. Theselocal schools did not last through the Revolutionary War, but by the end of the 1700s, the idea of public, state-funded schools had caught on inNew England with the interesting fact that the ability to read was a prerequisite for the 7-year-olds who wanted to attend the public grammarschool, at least in Boston. The idea of secular, compulsory public schooling was introduced in the 1800s, a move that fostered the universalexpectation of literacy for all citizens, if not its actualization.
The 20th Century: Dick and Jane Versus Eloise
During the 20th century, literacy always seemed to be in a state of crisis, a phenomenon epitomized by the mid-century book entitled WhyJohnny Can’t Read—And What You Can do About It (Flesch, 1955). A 1954 article in Life magazine claimed that one of the main reasonschildren didn’t learn to read well was that the primers used in schools were boring. They featured spiffy, White, middle-class children who wereuniversally good-natured and always did the right thing; rather than challenging children with adventure and conflict and acknowledging thefact that bad decisions often turn into the best stories.
Popular children’s books oftenfeature naughty charactersmaking bad decisions, whileschool readers used in the1940s and ‘50s highlighted well-behaved children making goodchoices.
Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain
More interesting books were out there, certainly, featuring rambunctious, humorous charactersmaking dubious choices. Consider Curious George (Rey, 1941),
The Tale of Peter Rabbit
(Potter,1902), and Eloise (Thompson, 1955), just to name three books available at the time. But books likethese weren’t being used in schools to teach children how to read. The director of the educationaldivision at Houghton Mifflin, William Ellsworth Spaulding, presented the findings of the Life article asa challenge to his friend Ted Geisel, who, nine months later and using a pen name, presented himwith a manuscript for The Cat in the Hat (Seuss, 1957). This book used only 236 words, all but 13 ofwhich appeared on a list of words every first grader should know, and started a revolution of sorts inearly reader books by combining education and entertainment. Arguably, though, this trend startedlong before Dr. Seuss, as we will see in Chapter 2. It might be more accurate to say that Seuss’sBeginner Books series presented the first significant challenge to school curriculums in the 20thcentury, in that the books paid attention to the needs of reading instruction at the same time as theysought to tell interesting stories.
The emphasis in this midcentury literacy crisis mentality centered on students’ ability to accesstraditional forms of reading and writing in a single language, and it arose at least in part out of ageneral philosophy of standardization and assimilation. In other words, this anxiety arose out of thebelief that the purpose of schooling was to ensure that everyone could function at roughly the samelevel in the national language and achieve a certain level of what E. D. Hirsch in the 1980s called”cultural literacy.” Hirsch’s project caused some controversy, however, and not long after hepublished his authoritarian, directive curriculum of “what every American needs to know” (Hirsch,1988), the emphasis shifted away from assimilation and shared cultural knowledge to an emphasison showcasing and honoring cultural and linguistic diversity.
In the 21st century, given this shift in sensibility and the significant changes wrought by technology on our daily lives, educators are now beingasked to radically re-conceptualize our ideas of literacy. Children today are growing up in an increasingly image-rich and media-saturatedculture. Becoming literate means being able to “read” not only print but also images, moving images, and soundtracks designed to appealdirectly to their emotions. While there is widespread worry that this increase in media will detract from traditional literacy acquisition and resultin a decline in the habit and ability to read (see, for instance, NEA, 2004), an expanded definition of literacy can actually be quite helpful inconsidering literature for young children.
Multiliteracies
The New London Group (NLG), a group of 10 well-known literacy educators from the United States, Australia, and Great Britain,advocates for a shift in understanding and teaching literacy to incorporate multiliteracies (New London Group, 1996; Kalantzis & Cope,2012). They suggest that we focus on six different ways that we make meaning:
· linguistic literacy, which includes elements of tradition verbal and written language;
· audio literacy, which includes music and sound effects;
· visual literacy, which includes elements of visual design, such as color, perspective, shape, position, and so forth;
· gestural literacy, which includes behavior, gesture, physicality, feelings, movement;
· spatial literacy, which includes elements of geographical and ecosystem design and architectural and sculptural design; and
· tactile literacy, which includes elements of touch, smell, and taste.
According to the NLG, the ability to analyze and use these modes is necessary for both understanding our world as it is and for crafting afuture that we find meaningful and fulfilling. More importantly for our purposes, however, is the understanding that these literacies are crucialfor young children as they learn to read. Infants begin the process of learning to read gestures and other visual information almost immediatelyafter birth. They also start to interpret sounds and space as they become habituated to their environments; they learn, for instance, toassociate their cribs with being alone, or kitchens with community and interesting activity and smells.
As they grow, their understandings and manipulations of these literacies become more intentional and form the basis for their understanding ofliterary texts. When children have stories read to them, they use their embodied experiences to make sense of the words and pictures. Theydraw on their knowledge of sounds, facial expressions and gestures, spatial environments and features, what things feel and smell like, andvisual information to turn words into mental images that make a story come alive. The stories themselves then expand those mental models sothat they can imagine worlds and scenarios beyond their everyday experiences. This is how reading works and how it provides pleasure: Itstarts by linking our sensory experiences to the words on a page, and then the words on the page help our imaginations reach beyond whatwe have experienced into new possibilities.
Because good reading—that is, the ability to make meaning from texts—depends on children’s ability to employ these multiliteracieseffectively, it is important that we help them build a wealth of multimodal experiences and engage them in conversations that encourage theirunderstanding of the various modes. We will explore this process in more depth in future chapters, using the NLG’s multiliteracies as our guideand organizational strategy. Our focus is on literature appropriate for children from infancy to age 8, or third grade. However, there aredifferences in the ages at which children acquire literacy, as well as different terminology used by literacy specialists, so we have divided ourdevelopmental discussion into three broad stages of reading development: prereaders, new readers, and young readers. For each level, therewill be one chapter devoted to the development and enrichment of audio and linguistic literacies and another that focuses on visual, gestural,spatial, and tactile literacies. For a more extensive discussion on multiliteracies and the work of the New London Group, see
http://www.newliteracies.com.au/what-are-new-literacies?/138/
and
http://newlearningonline.com/multiliteracies/
.
Online Resources: Stages of Reading Development
Various models have been developed for describing the stages of reading development, including the following:
For an overview of noted literacy expert Jeanne Chall’s Stages of Reading Development:
For a model developed by the Pacific Resources for Education and Learning:
http://www.readingrockets.org/article/51574/
For a discussion on the stages and goals of reading development by the Institute of Reading Development:
http://readingprograms.org/our-approach/stages-of-reading-development/
1.5 How Does the Path to Literacy and Literary Enjoyment Begin?
Ellen Dissanayake, a scholar who studies the role of art in cultures around the globe, claims that the bond between infant and caregiversbegins in what she and others call “communicative musicality” (2009, p. 23). Mothers and infants develop relational call-and-response patternsthat bring them in sync with one another and enable bonding. Dissanayake explores this bonding behavior as an explanation for the origins ofmusic in human society, but we can link it to how an appreciation of literature begins. The literature we share with children is a way ofcommunicating with them the wonder and possibilities of the world we live in. And it begins with helping them recognize patterns anddeveloping the skill of joint attention.
Being new to the world is certainly stressful for the baby, but having a new baby is also stressful for the caregiver; getting to know a whole newperson who is wholly dependent on you for survival can be overwhelming. “Getting to know someone” means figuring out what is predictableor consistent about that person’s responses and behaviors. Part of getting to know a new baby involves actively helping the baby establishpatterns of predictability that will make the baby feel safe by imposing some order on the world. One of a caregiver’s or early childhoodeducator’s most important roles in working with infants and young children is to help them structure their world so that they have categoriesand patterns into which they can fit new information. Adults help children make sense of their world.
Dissanayake stresses, however, that communication between adults and infants is not a one-way street. Instead, she says, babies teachadults how to talk to them by responding in different ways to different utterances. Infants are more likely to respond positively to expressionsthat are “simplified, repeated, exaggerated, and elaborated” (2009, p. 23). Again, although Dissanayake’s claims are made in the service ofexplaining how music functions in human culture, we can see how these observations of infant preferences can be mapped onto not only thekinds of music they enjoy but the literature they favor as well. Children’s poetry and nursery rhymes typically make use of the qualities of simplification, repetition, exaggeration, and elaboration.
Dissanayake also says that children prefer multimodal presentations—that is, through “simultaneous vocal, visual, and kinesic (relating tomotion) expressions” (2009, p. 23). Children’s literature is almost always presented in a multimodal format—that is, a format that engagesmore than one of the five senses. Storytellers use their bodies and voices to convey their message, and often incorporate music andcostuming and invite children to participate in the storytelling process, either by joining in on a repetitive refrain or by acting out a behavior.Action songs and rhymes are a large part of children’s literature and culture. But perhaps the most dominant and familiar form of children’sliterature, the form that defines the genre, is the children’s picturebook—a multimodal form of infinite variety that in so many ways usherschildren into the world of literacy.
As adults share picturebooks with children, they are engaging them in an activity that draws on all six multiliteracies in order to make meaning.While looking at the pictures and simultaneously hearing the words or having conversations about the book, children are engaged in a projectof joint attention with an adult over a special kind of object. They are not eating or being dressed or rolling a ball back and forth. Instead, theadult is showing them something that they are expected to make meaning from. By pointing and directing their eyes to the pictures on thepage, adults help them make the connection between two-dimensional images, spoken and written words, and objects in their world. Childrenbegin fitting the images on the page and the words they hear into mental models they have developed from their own experiences. Eventually,they come to understand how books work. That is, they learn that images and words are not just objects to be looked at, but that they haveintentions, so to speak. They are trying to say something that the child needs to try to understand. This is the starting point of print literacy.
Developmental Considerations
In first-world cultures such as the United States, literacy development is as important to children as learning to walk and talk. Researchers inthe development of identity argue that this is because we develop our sense of self from words and images that are available to us, and theseinclude images from print and nonprint literature and media (Bracher, 2009; Gergen, 2000; Strenger, 2005). Children’s texts in particularprovide a range of images that children learn to identity with and imitate on the one hand, and dis-identify with and distance themselves fromon the other. So it is necessary to understand how development occurs, and the role literature and literacy play in that development, in order tounderstand how to choose and share developmentally appropriate literature that supports healthy growth, a strong sense of self, and apositive orientation toward others.
Developmental psychologists have developed stage theories to describe various aspects of how children grow and change in relativelypredictable ways. Two things are important to remember about stage theories: First, children progress through stages at different rates,depending on innate abilities, temperament, and environmental factors, so the age range attributed to stages is approximate. The order of thestages is more important than the age at which each stage is achieved. Second, stages should not be thought of as one-way gates towardprogress. That is, once children have moved from one stage to another, they don’t simply abandon the ways of thinking that characterized theearlier stage forever. Instead, they have more complex ways of thinking available to them as they approach a task. A better way to think aboutstages is that each stage offers what art education professor Michael J. Parsons calls “a cluster of ideas” (1987, p. 11) for considering aproblem or thinking about a work of art or an aspect of a relationship.
Reading to a baby while holding him or her makesthe baby feel safe.
Christopher Robbins/Digital Vision/Thinkstock
Parsons adds that each stage of development, whether it be cognitive, moral,social, or aesthetic, moves progressively toward a greater capacity to consider theperspectives of others (1987). This is important in terms of literacy developmentand literature appreciation. The ability to understand stories requires the ability totake the perspective of characters and think about why they behave as they do. Inturn, the more children listen and respond to stories, the greater their capacity toenter into the perspective of characters. This helps them consider more optionswhen they approach conflict in their own lives.
Another reason to consider stage theories in relation to literature is to considerwhat kinds of books children will likely be interested in at what stages. For instance,British doctor and psychoanalyst D. W. Winnicott asserts that an infant’s mostcrucial need is for an adequate “holding environment.” Babies need to be held,literally and emotionally, so that they are able “to feel the body is the place wherethe psyche lives” (Winnicott, 1964, p. 194). Literally speaking, holding a baby whilereading a book or singing to him or her helps the child feel safe. Many children’sbooks, such as Mem Fox’s Time for Bed (1993), Denise Fleming’s Sleepy, Oh So Sleepy (2010) and Jean-Baptiste Baronian’s Con Todo MiCorazon (originally published in French as De Tout mon Coeur, 1998) offer comforting images of holding, in which human and animal parentscuddle their babies. As they grow older, Winnicott notes, children work through their ongoing need for physical holding through the use of a”transitional object” such as a blanket or a teddy bear. The beloved character Corduroy was introduced in 1968 (Corduroy, Don Freeman) andremains popular today precisely because children relate to the need for a transitional object.
The most influential developmental stage theories were framed by Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget, German-born American developmentalpsychologist Erik Erikson, and American psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg. We will briefly review their theories here and relate them to thekinds of themes common in books for young children. In Chapters 6–10, we will hone in more specifically on how understanding developmentcan assist in choosing developmentally appropriate literature in terms of format and presentation.
Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development
Piaget proposed a model of intellectual or cognitive development. He believed that children’s intellectual development grew in tandem withtheir physical development. As children grow, he reasoned, they organize their experience into categories. Early concept books, whichfeature objects grouped according to a single characteristic, such as color or shape, and concept books, which are informational booksorganized around a single subject, help children with the work of categorizing. Learning requires that they adapt those categories in one of twoways: assimilation or accommodation. Assimilation occurs when new information can be made to fit existing categories. For instance, a childmay have environmental experience with a particular kind of dog, but when introduced to Matthew van Fleet’s Dog (2007), which shows 20different kinds of dogs, the child inputs a variety of new data into his or her category of dog.
Accommodation occurs when the new data can’t be made to fit the existing category, so the category itself needs to be adjusted. Suppose achild knows what a horse is and then watches the children’s film Racing Stripes (2005) or reads a traditional alphabet book. The child knowsthat horses can come in different colors and have patterned hides, but a “horse” with black and white stripes is not a horse at all. The childthen has to change his existing knowledge to accommodate the new information.
Although Piaget proposed these are two separate kinds of learning adaptations, they most often happen in concert with each other, withchildren testing and exploring what things are like other things and how categories can be formed to break up the world into manageablechunks. Books for very young children assist in the development and expansion of mental categories by presenting various objects groupedby one or two dominant characteristics. For instance, Matthew van Fleet has a series of board books that focus on a single species (Dog,2007; Cat, 2009) or body part (Heads, 2010; Tails, 2003). Mem Fox and Helen Oxenbury introduce the concept of diversity in their board book Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes (2008) by featuring a cast of multicultural tykes from different environments all over the world thatnevertheless share the characteristic of having ten little fingers and ten little toes.
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Table 1.1: Books for stages of cognitive development |
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AgeRange |
Stage ofdevelopment |
Characteristics |
Appropriately themed books |
|
Birth–age2 |
Sensorimotor |
Infants and toddlers learn about the worldthrough their senses and movements. |
Early concept books that depict everyday objectsorganized by qualities such as color, size, species,habitat, etc. |
|
Ages 2–7 |
Preoperational |
Children understand symbols (words andimages). Language is developing rapidly.Pretend play is increasingly prevalent. |
Concept books where objects are labeled withwords or organized according to relationships, likeopposites, counting, alphabet; stories that promotepretend play; stories that introduce challenging newvocabulary. |
|
Ages 7–11 |
Concreteoperational |
Children begin to understand inductivelogic (that is, can go from a specificexample to a general principle); they canalso begin to manipulate mental categoriesto solve problems. |
Nonfiction about environmental processes,architecture, and making things. Fantasy fictionfeaturing gadgets. |
Erikson’s Stages of Psychosocial Development
Erik Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development grew out of Sigmund Freud’s theory of psychosexual development. Freud linked each stageto a particular erogenous zone of the body that a child focuses on to achieve satisfaction, including an oral stage, an anal stage, and phallicstage. He tied these stages of development to problems of sexual and gender identity and general effectiveness as a human being later in life.His focus on psychosexual development made his work very controversial, but later Freudian thinkers, such as Erikson, expanded Freud’sfocus beyond gender and sexual development to the development of the personality as whole. While Erikson developed his theory beyondchildhood all the way to old age, we will focus on the relevant stages from birth to age 8.
Erikson formulated his stages around a set of basic conflicts that children must work through as they grow. The way children resolve theseconflicts creates a pattern of relationality that can persist throughout their lives. Understanding the nature of these conflicts helps usunderstand which books may be useful to children at certain times in their lives. Children can use the stories and behaviors modeled in booksand other media to help them understand and work through the conflicts they are experiencing.
|
Table 1.2: Books for stages of psychosocial development |
|||
|
Agerange |
Basicconflict |
Characteristics |
Appropriately themed books |
|
Birth–18months |
Trust vs.distrust |
Infants are seekingroutines, stability, andreliable patterns ofcare. |
Picturebooks and early concept books that reflect their own everydayenvironment and show babies in loving relationships with others willreinforce their sense that the world is stable and predictable. Repetitivesongs and nursery rhymes also help establish a sense of an ordered world. |
|
2–3 years |
Autonomyvs. shameand doubt |
Toddlers are learningself-control throughtoileting as well asgreater physicalcompetence throughsafe exploration oftheir environments. |
Picturebooks that show loving resolutions to simple conflicts such as going tobed, welcoming a new sibling, toileting, and eating new foods will affirm theirdeveloping competence and autonomy in these areas. Also, most children willbe ready for simple stories about parental separation and reunion. Nurseryrhymes like “Jack Be Nimble” and action songs help them get started withsimple communal action. Picturebooks that focus on transitional objects arealso important in this stage, as children need reassurance that just becausethey are becoming more independent, they are not losing the comfort theyonce enjoyed. |
|
3–5 years |
Initiativevs. guilt |
Children are startingto experiment withhow much power theyhave over theirsituation. |
Picturebooks about going to school or going on fantasy “explores” areappropriate as children’s imaginations and environments get bigger. Storiesthat feature characters who are naughty or express anger, or books withpowerful characters, such as monsters or dinosaurs, help children cope withaggressive feelings or feelings of powerlessness. Also, books aboutcharacters who undergo positive physical change help children imagine theway they too are changing and growing. |
|
6–11years |
Industryvs.inferiority |
Children are learningto cope with newsocial demands aswell as learningacademic skills. Theyneed to feel as if thework they do isimportant to thefunctioning of theirfamily or social group. |
Books that showcase characters who made a difference in their communitiesor world. Realistic or fantasy fiction that highlights problem solving skills. |
Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development
Lawrence Kohlberg supplemented Piaget’s theory of cognitive development with a breakdown of the stages of moral development. Hedeveloped his theory through extensive conversations with children. However, it is important to remember that the level of children’s moralreasoning does not always correspond to their moral behavior. Children often act out of compassion or selfishness even when it goes againsttheir principles. The later stages of Kohlberg’s system have been criticized for overemphasizing the importance of individualism and personalrights and freedoms, while other cultural values, such as the importance of interdependence and social responsibility are devalued. However,the early stages do seem to correspond to children’s developing moral reasoning.
|
Table 1.3: Books for stages of moral development |
|||
|
Agerange |
Stage |
Characteristics |
Appropriately-themed books |
|
Birth–1year |
Stage 0:Preconventional |
Children feel that whatever meets theirneeds and preferences is good. |
Early concept books that show baby faces withdifferent emotions give infants mirror images toexpand their emotional range. |
|
1–5 years |
Stage 1:Preconventional:obedience andpunishment |
Rules are absolute and children obeythem so as to avoid punishment. |
Stories that show actions and consequences, bothgood and bad, will open up discussions about howbehaviors lead to results. Stories that treat benignbad behaviors in a humorous way help children feelsuperior in their own knowledge of the proper waysto behave. |
|
6–12years |
Stage 2:Conventional:individual andexchange |
Children want to be thought of as good,and they want to maintain social order.Sometimes these come into conflict withone another, and they must choose toconform to the group or act in their ownself-interest. |
Stories that challenge gender stereotypes and poseproblems that focus on conforming versus standingon one’s own can open discussions aboutconsequences of moral actions. |
These theories of development can act as fairly reliable guides to choosing books that children will find interesting and relevant to theircurrent situations. As we move through the chapters of this book, we will introduce further details about development from differentperspectives so that we can get a fuller picture of what developmentally appropriate literature means.
Multiple Intelligences
In addition to considering developmental stages when choosing literature for children, it is also helpful to understand Howard Gardner’s theoryof multiple intelligences (1983). There is considerable conceptual overlap between the NLG’s articulation of multiliteracies and Gardner’stheory, considering that they both respond to the diverse ways we interpret experience. Gardner argues that there is no general way ofconceiving of intelligence but that people are intelligent in different registers. He proposes nine such ways of being smart:
· Spatial: an ability to understand and visualize objects in two- and three-dimensional space
· Logical-mathematical: an ability to reason through abstractions, recognize patterns, perform calculations, think critically, and considermultiple hypotheses
· Linguistic: an ease with spoken and written language, including storytelling, creative uses of language, debate and discussion, and theability to learn multiple languages
· Bodily-kinethestic: an ability to effectively use and control one’s gross and fine motor skills and to train those skills until they becomeseemingly instinctual; also includes a strong sense of time, space, and goals with regard to bodily actions
· Musical: an ability to distinguish sound, pitch, rhythm, meter, melody, and tone
· Interpersonal: a sensitivity to the emotional needs and expressions of other people and an ability to cooperate with and/or direct groups
· Intrapersonal: an ability to understand and reflect on one’s own actions and motivations
· Naturalistic: a sensitivity to one’s natural environment, including animals, plants, and geographical features
· Existential: a sensitivity to and ability to contemplate ideas and phenomena that transcend the senses (Gardner resisted the idea of aspiritual intelligence but considered this an acceptable substitute)
Gardner contends that education programs emphasizing only linguistic and logical-mathematic intelligence (which are dominant in mostschool settings) miss many of the ways in which children approach the world. According to Gardner, all people possess all of theintelligences to some degree, with one or two being dominant. Children prefer to approach tasks and activities that use the modalitiesthrough which they excel.
Many of the intelligence modes interact and overlap with each other; for instance, people with a high degree of musical intelligence may alsotend to excel in logical-mathematical tasks, since there are similarities in musical and mathematical structures. But sometimes, people with ahigh level of empathy, or interpersonal intelligence, might be seen as troublemakers in school or day care settings, since their concern forother people often runs afoul of classroom rules of staying quiet, attending to their own work, and keeping their hands to themselves.Alternately, immature leadership skills may devolve into bullying if teachers and caregivers don’t recognize and channel this expression ofinterpersonal intelligence in sensitive ways.
Understanding the various kinds of intelligence enables parents and caregivers to select books for children that respond to their interests andtheir modes of approaching the world. For instance, 3-to-5-year-olds who have a tendency to ask big questions about why the physical worldworks the way it does (existential intelligence) will appreciate the philosophical and metaphorical connections in Mary Lyn Ray’s and MarlaFrazee’s Stars (2011). Children who demonstrate a naturalistic intelligence will appreciate Joyce Sidman’s poetry and gravitate toward booksthat explore animal behavior and habitats. Stories about family relationships and friendships will appeal to children who favor inter- andintrapersonal intelligence modes.
In addition to aiding book selection, an understanding of multiple intelligences can assist educators in determining the best ways to sharebooks with their particular children. Young readers with interpersonal intelligence skills can be encouraged to share their favorite books withprereaders in one-on-one reading sessions. Logical-mathematical learners can be paired with bodily-kinesthetic learners to create sets, props,and puppets to augment story times. Children who demonstrate musical intelligence can be asked to create and perform a song in response toa book.
Explore and Reflect: Multiple Intelligences
Imagine you are designing a unit on butterflies. One of the books you have chosen to use is Eric Carle’s The Very HungryCaterpillar (1969). Select three of Gardner’s intelligences and suggest book-related activities that would engage students inthose modes. Share and exchange your ideas with your classmates.
Choosing the right book for the right children at the right time depends on careful observation skills. By paying attention to the habits, fears,and preoccupations of the children under your care and thinking about them in light of developmental stages and different kinds ofintelligences, you can assess what topics, themes, and kinds of books will be most likely to meet their needs and preferences. The question,then, becomes where you find the books themselves.
1.6 Where to Find Children’s Books
Children’s books are everywhere, from grocery stores to large department stores to specialty bookshops. With nearly 30,000 children’sbooks published every year, the sheer volume of books available can be overwhelming. Getting to know your way around your local publicor school library is a good first step to finding what you need.
Libraries and Bookstores
The most general categories that books fall into are fiction and nonfiction. Fiction encompasses all stories that are imaginary, that neveractually happened. This doesn’t mean that they are not “true,” because all good stories have elements of truth to them, but it is psychologicalor moral truth, not historical truth. Nonfiction, then, covers all books that relate incidents that actually happened, or explain known facts aboutthe world. That doesn’t mean that every nonfiction book is “true,” because every incident is told through a perspective which may or may notbe shared by everyone who experienced that incident, and what we know about the world sometimes changes. Fiction books are alphabetizedby the last name of their authors, while nonfiction books are organized by topic. Bookstores use broad categories, but libraries use the moreprecise categories and subcategories of the Dewey Decimal System.
Developed in 1876, the Dewey decimal classification (DDC) system is a way of organizing library collections into 10 main categories. Eachcategory then has subcategories to make the organization more meaningful. Books are arranged according to call numbers that correspond tothe subcategories. Most public libraries have special children’s sections that are organized according to the DDC, but they insert a J before thecall number to indicate that it is part of their juvenile collection. It’s important for people who work with young children to be familiar with theDDC so that they can respond to children’s interests as well as work toward specific learning goals.
Here are the 10 classifications in the DDC:
· 000–099 Computer Science, Information, and General Works
· 100–199 Philosophy and Psychology
· 200–299 Religion
· 300–399 Social Sciences
· 400–499 Language
· 500–599 Science
· 600–699 Technology
· 700–799 Arts
· 800–899 Literature
· 900–999 History, Geography, and Biography
For instance, nonfiction children’s picturebooks on snakes will be found in the J500s, specifically J597, with other books on cold-bloodedvertebrates. Andrea Pinkney’s Sit-in: How Four Friends Stood Up by Sitting Down is identified by the call number J323.1196 PIN, whichindicates that it is a book about civil and political rights and that the author’s last name starts with the letters PIN.
What you find in some categories may be surprising. For instance, folk and fairy tales might seem oddly out of place in the 300s, but they areclassified under the subcategory “customs, etiquette, and folklore” in J398. Children’s poetry will be found in the J811. Technically, this sectionis devoted to American poetry, but in children’s sections, most poetry books will be in that category.
Notice that there is a literature category (800–899), but most libraries separate out fiction books so that readers can more easily find them. Inchildren’s sections, which are usually in a special area of the library, fiction is further divided into categories of picturebooks, middle gradeliterature, and young adult literature. Some libraries also have categories for beginning readers, which is where they shelve leveled readers,both fiction and nonfiction, and for early readers, which is where they put early chapter books, graphic novels for young readers, and seriesfiction. Other sections may be set aside for board books, audio books, award winners, and books that are not written in English.
Children’s sections in bookstores are often organized in a similar fashion, with separate sections for board books, leveled readers, earlychapter books, and picturebooks. They may have shelves set aside for award winners and books in other languages. In addition, they mayhave sections devoted to a specific publisher, like Disney Hyperion. Bookstores are more likely than libraries to carry tactile books, such as movable books or activity books (sticker books, puzzle books, books that have wheels attached or other toy-like features, etc.) becausetactile books are not particularly durable or aren’t meant to be shared with multiple readers.
Explore and Reflect: Touring the Library
Take a field trip to your local library and explore the children’s section. How are the books arranged? What special sections doyou notice? Browse the nonfiction sections as well. Note how many picturebooks are found in the nonfiction as well as thepicturebook sections. What else besides books does your local library include in its children’s section? Compare yourexperiences with others in your class.
Introducing Children to Librarians
Librarians can help childrenlearn about a library’s servicesand resources.
iStockphoto/Thinkstock
Books are not the only important resource in the library or the bookstore: School and publiclibrarians, fellow teachers, and bookstore employees are enormously valuable resources in helpingyou choose books for individual students as well as classroom use, particularly when you are juststarting out in the profession. Many libraries will arrange guided tours of their facilities for day-caregroups. Some have outreach librarians who will visit your facility to share books and introducechildren to the services that libraries offer. If possible, you can arrange a regular weekly visit to thelibrary with your children so that they learn to feel comfortable there.
It is also important for children to develop the confidence to approach a librarian on their own. Sinceyoung children can be bashful, and since approaching unfamiliar adults can be intimidating, the keyis preparation. Maria Montessori, founder of the Montessori educational approach, included whatshe called “grace and courtesy” lessons as part of the Montessori practical life curriculum. Shebelieved that children need the sense of order that social manners provides. While many childrenare taught manners, greeting protocols, and proper ways to get the attention of an adult as a matterof course, many are not, and this can make it difficult for them to feel comfortable in unfamiliar socialsituations. You can help your children become more comfortable with adults by teaching themproper manners. Consider the following suggested books about manners.
Books About Manners
Cole, Babette. Lady Lupin’s Guide to Etiquette. (2002, Spanish edition, El Libro de Etiqueta de Lady Lupina, 2003).
Cooper, Ilene and Swiatowska, Gabi. The Golden Rule. (2007).
Dutton, Sandra. Dear Miss Perfect: A Beast’s Guide to Proper Behavior. (2007).
Eberly, Sheryl. 365 Manners Kids Should Know: Games, Activities, and Other Fun Ways to Help Children Learn Etiquette.(2011, teacher resource).
Goldberg, Whoopi and Olo. Whoopi’s Big Book of Manners. (2010).
James, Elizabeth and Barkin, Carol. Social Smarts: Manners for Today’s Kids. (teacher resource, 1996).
Joslin, Sesyle and Sendak, Maurice. What Do You Say, Dear? (1986).
Keller, Laurie. Do Unto Otters: A Book about Manners. (2007).
Leaf, Munro. How to Speak Politely and Why. (2005).
Melling, David. The Scallywags. (2006).
Polisar, Barry Louis and Clark, David. Don’t Do That!: A Child’s Guide to Bad Manners, Ridiculous Rules, and InadequateEtiquette. (1995).
Rosenthal, Amy Krouse and Dyer, Jane. Cookies: Bite-Size Life Lessons. (2006).
Sierra, Judy and Seibold, J. Otto. Mind Your Manners, B.B. Wolf. (2007).
Sierra, Judy and Bowers, Tim. Suppose You Meet a Dinosaur: A First Book of Manners. (2012).
Willems, Mo. Time to Say “Please!” (2005).
Another method of preparing older children (that is, 5 years old and up) to approach librarians is to have them do a personal interest inventory.These are useful for students to clarify their own interests as well as for you to keep on file as you design curriculum for your students. It isalso interesting to revisit them later in the school year to see if interests and attitudes toward reading have changed.
Explore and Reflect: Taking Inventory
Look at several of the interest and reading inventories in the websites listed here. Using these as models, create one thatyou feel would be useful and appropriate for children in kindergarten through second grade. Exchange your inventory with apartner, and offer suggestions and feedback.
http://www.st.cr.k12.ia.us/reading/readinginterestinventorieschoicepage.htm
http://coedpages.uncc.edu/dbtaylor/Resources/IntInv1.pdf
http://www.lauracandler.com/filecabinet/literacy/PDFRead/ReadingInterestInventories.pdf
Once students have completed the inventory, role-play the interaction between the student and a librarian. Begin by having the studentintroduce him or herself, and politely ask for the librarian’s name. This step is one we often skip in such interactions, but the goal is for thestudent to develop a trusting relationship with this very important adult, so it helps to know each other’s names. Then have the student ask fora book on a certain topic he or she would like to pursue. The librarian will likely ask questions that the student will have already answered onthe inventory, such as what sort of books he likes or even a specific title that he particularly enjoyed. Because students have done theinventory, they will have a ready answer, which will increase the likelihood of a successful reader’s advisory.
Now, they are ready to meet their librarian. If this activity is limited to a school context, the school librarian will likely have already met thechildren in your class, and be familiar with both your curriculum and their interests (librarians are wondrously good at getting to know individualstudents’ reading preferences and habits). It is important, though, to have the students meet the public librarian in their town as well, sincepublic libraries often have different collections than school libraries, and they are open in the summer. A class trip might be arranged, but itwould be better if students could go in small groups, which could be accomplished through the enlistment of parent and grandparentvolunteers who would be willing to take children in small groups to the library during or after school hours. Involving parents in theseexcursions can have the added benefit of introducing them to library services as well; bear in mind that some parents may be asuncomfortable as their children with such an outing, so arranging to meet them at the library with their children might help them feel moreconfident. Remind the parents, though, that the goal is for their children to learn to speak for themselves, so they should stand back and let thechildren make their own introductions and inquiries.
Readers’ Advisory and Learning to Use the Library
Finding Books Online
Another way for you to find books, of course, is online. When you want to find a list of books focusing on a specific topic, you can simply enteryour query into your favorite search engine (Google, Bing, etc.), and let the vast online community of parents, librarians, teachers, authors,illustrators, and children’s literature bloggers make suggestions for you. Reviews of books are widely available from multiple sources. (A fewexamples are listed in Websites to Save and Explore at the end of this chapter.) As always with Internet searches, however, you shouldconsider the source of the information. Some websites have specific ideological or commercial interests. This can be very helpful, dependingon your community, but you need to educate yourself regarding the perspective of the site and cross-check its information against other sites.
Additionally, while many websites and blogs that review and highlight children’s books are free, others have subscription fees for full access.For instance, teachingbooks.net offers a wealth of resources to inspire and complement your lesson planning, such as video author interviewsand readings, themed book lists, book guides and lesson plans, suggestions for Common Core curriculum alignment, and professionalarticles. They offer licensing options for school districts and public libraries, as well as homeschool groups.
Another way to search is to enter a single author or title into a search engine. Among other options, you will be directed to online bookstores.Online bookstores such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble feature reader reviews, lists, and suggestions for other titles, so a simple search canopen into a wealth of options and possibilities. These vendors often allow you to preview the book through the Look Inside feature.Additionally, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Google have e-book apps that can be loaded onto multiple devices, and many of the booksavailable are free or very low cost.
Award Winners
One way to steer your way through the dizzying number of children’s books published each year is to keep up with the various awardsthat are presented to children’s books authors and illustrators. The following is a list of awards, with their focus and links to their archives.
American Indian Youth Literature Award
Presented by the American Indian Library Association to honor the books that best “represent American Indians in the fullness of theirhumanity in the present and past contexts”:
http://ailanet.org/activities/american-indian-youth-literature-award/
American Library Association Awards
All of these awards, except the Batchelder, are limited to American authors:
· Batchelder Award: Best book originally published in a language other than English in a country other than the United States and thentranslated:
http://www.ala.org/alsc/awardsgrants/bookmedia/batchelderaward
· Belpré Medal: Awarded to the Latino/Latina author and illustrator who best portrays, affirms and celebrates Latino cultural experience:
http://www.ala .org/alsc/awardsgrants/bookmedia/belpremedal
· Caldecott Medal: Awarded to the artist of the most distinguished picture book of the year:
http://www.ala.org/alsc/awardsgrants/bookmedia/caldecottmedal/caldecottmedal
· Carnegie Medal: Awarded to the most outstanding children’s video:
http://www.ala.org/alsc/awardsgrants/bookmedia/carnegiemedal
· Coretta Scott King Award: Awarded to African American authors and illustrators who demonstrate an appreciation of African Americanculture and universal human values:
http://www.ala.org/emiert/cskbookawards
· Geisel Award: Most distinguished book for beginning readers:
http://www .ala.org/alsc/awardsgrants/bookmedia/geiselaward
· Newbery Medal: Award for the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children:
http://www.ala.org/alsc/awardsgrants/bookmedia/newberymedal/newberymedal
· Odyssey Award: Best audio book for children and/or young adults:
http://www.ala.org/alsc/awardsgrants/bookmedia/odysseyaward
· Sibert Award: Most distinguished informational or nonfiction book for children:
http://www.ala.org/alsc/awardsgrants/bookmedia/sibertmedal
Boston Globe/Hornbook Awards
Selected by an independent panel of three judges appointed by the editor of The Horn Book Magazine, a journal that features reviews andarticles about children’s literature, awards are given in June to the best books in the categories of Fiction and Poetry, Picture Book, andNonfiction:
http://archive.hbook.com/bghb/
Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books Blue Ribbons
Selected by a panel of reviewers that includes scholars in the fields of English, Education, and Library Sciences, as well as children’slibrarians, this list is comprised of the best books of the year in three categories: Fiction, Nonfiction, and Picturebooks:
http://bccb.lis.illinois.edu/BlueRibbons/blue11.html
Gryphon Award
Awarded by the Center for Children’s Books at University of Illinois Urbana/Champaign to the book written for an audience of K–fourthgraders that best bridges the gap between reading aloud and reading independently:
http://ccb.lis.illinois.edu/gryphon.html
Jane Addams Peace Association Children’s Book Award
Given annually to the children’s books that effectively promote the cause of peace, social justice, world community, and equality of allsexes and races:
http://www.janeaddamspeace.org/jacba/index_jacba.shtml
National Council of Teachers of English Awards
· Orbis Pictus Award for Outstanding Nonfiction for Children:
http://www.ncte .org/awards/orbispictus
· NCTE Award for Excellence in Poetry for Children:
http://www.ncte.org/awards/poetry
Summary
Selecting quality, developmentally appropriate literature for children starts with an understanding of what children’s literature does for childrenand how it does it. The purpose of this book is to explore these issues in depth. In this chapter, we introduced the multiliteracies anddevelopmental perspectives that will inform our explorations of children’s literature and the role it plays in children’s developing literacy. To findliterature that will interest your children and help you nurture their successful development, you can use libraries, bookstores, onlineresources, and children’s book awards lists.
Teaching Ideas
Prekindergarten
· Go to the J 641 section of the library and locate several cookbooks. Have students look through the cookbooks and design a “dreammenu.”
Kindergarten–Grade 1
· Ask the librarians in your local or school library to put together a class pack of alphabet books. (Most libraries offer this service—youjust need to tell them how many students you have and what types of books you want.) Having students share the books in smallgroups and pick their favorite letter to present to the class.
Grades 1–3
· Design a library scavenger hunt. Have students work in teams to find a fairy tale, a book about snakes, a cookbook, a biography, apicturebook, and so forth. Tailor this activity to your group and the time you have. Have each team present their books to the class.
Websites to Save and Explore
Daily children’s book recommendations from well-known editor and literary critic Anita Silvey:
http://childrensbookalmanac.com/
Informative blog about books by former children’s literature librarian Julie Danielson. Contains a huge list of links to sites related to children’sliterature:
http://blaine.org/sevenimpossiblethings/
Website, blog, and outreach program focused on multicultural children’s literature:
http://papertigers.org/
Website for The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, updated monthly and including an annual gift-giving guide arranged by age:
http://bccb.lis.illinois.edu/
Children’s Books and Films in the Chapter
Baronian, Jean-Baptiste. Con Todo Mi Corazon. (1998)
Carle, Eric. The Very Hungry Caterpillar. (1969)
Fleming, Denise. Sleepy, Oh So Sleepy. (2010)
Fox, Mem and Oxenbury, Helen. Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes. (2008)
Fox, Mem. Time for Bed. (1993)
Freeman, Don. Corduroy. (1968)
“Lionni, Leo. Swimmy. (1963)
Potter, Beatrix. The Tale of Peter Rabbit. (1902)
Racing Stripes. Directed by Frederik Du Chau. (2005)
Ray, Mary Lyn and Frazee, Marla. Stars. (2011)
Rey, H. A. Curious George. (1941)
Seuss, Dr. The Cat in the Hat. (1957)
Thompson, Hilary. Eloise. (1955)
Van Fleet, Matthew. Cat. (2009)
Van Fleet, Matthew. Dog. (2007)
Van Fleet, Matthew. Heads. (2010)
Van Fleet, Matthew. Tails. (2003)
Key Terms
Click on each key term to see the definition.
Books that encourage children’s interaction and manipulation, such as sticker books, books with toy features such as wheels or built-inpuppets, puzzle books, etc.
Ability to recognize and interpret aspects of music, noise, and sound effects; hearing and listening.
Books printed on thick paperboard with washable surfaces.
Informational books organized by concepts, such as opposites, weather, counting, alphabet, animal habitats, etc.
A measure of a child’s development (physical or psychological) charted in terms of peer norms.
Short books for newly independent readers arranged in chapters, usually have some illustrations, often appear in series.
Informational books for very young children that are organized by simple concepts, such as color, body parts, shape, everyday items oractivities; have very few words.
In communication with young children, to expand familiar utterances and actions with more or different details.
In communication with young children, to amplify movements, gestures, and tone of voice beyond normal registers.
Books that feature stories that never actually happened.
Ability to recognize and interpret the meanings of behavior, gesture, physicality, feelings, movement, dance.
The ideas, beliefs, and values of an individual, group, class, or culture.
The shared focus of two or more individuals on a single object.
Relating to motion; more often spelled kinetic.
Books graded according to a mathematical formula that calculates variables such as sentence length, percentage of difficult words, andaverage number of syllables per word.
Elements of tradition verbal and written language.
A term that applies to any kind of book that includes three-dimensional features, such as pop-ups, tunnel books, pull-tabs, life-the-flap,wheels, etc.
A term coined by the New London Group to refer to the six modes we use to make meaning, which include audio, gestural, linguistic,spatial, tactile, and visual literacies.
The combination of one or more styles or forms of expression.
Informational books that include facts about events, people, places, or phenomena that exist or have existed.
Books where the pictures are as important as the text to convey the story or information.
A service offered by librarians or booksellers that involves suggesting fiction or nonfiction to readers based on their stated interests.
The act of saying or doing the same or similar things over and over again or in a similar way.
In communication with young children, to limit utterances to a few familiar words or concepts.
Ability to recognize and interpret features such as personal distance, relational size, elements of geographical and ecosystem design,architectural and sculptural design.
Ability to recognize and interpret elements of touch, smell, and taste.
Ability to recognize and interpret elements of visual design, such as color, perspective, shape, composition of still and moving images.
Chapter 1 Flashcards
Critical Thinking and Discussion Questions
1. In what ways could it be argued that all children’s books, no matter what their content, are teaching texts for children?
2. How do politicians and other policy makers seem to define literacy today? How do you define literacy? What are some differences, if any,between the way educators and policy makers understand literacy?
3. Why are the six multiliteracies identified by the New London Group important for developing strong independent readers in contemporaryculture?
4. What are the qualities to consider when determining whether a book is developmentally appropriate for a particular child or group ofchildren? Are there any qualities that you would consider more important than others?
5. How does your understanding of multiple intelligences affect your ability to choose books to share with children?
