Episode 3
This is the last post in a mini series of Book Chat posts to provide you with top tips to help you get the best out of reading with your children.
Top Tips:
1. Make personal connections: Picture storybooks not only allow children to empathise with the experiences of fictional characters but enable them to make sense of events in their own lives. Talk about connections, for example, ‘That reminds me of when…’.
2. Comment on your feelings: By sharing your emotional response to a character or something that’s happened you encourage your child to do the same, helping them engage and learn to express their emotions.
3. Your combined pleasure counts: Bring the story to life with facial expression, actions and sounds, encouraging your child to join in! Do offer information to help with unfamiliar words, such as ‘That’s the hencoop, it’s where the hens live’, but keep the focus on fun.
Please see this example below: Professor Teresa Cremin (The Open University) reads The Same Inside Poems about Empathy and Friendship, by Liz Brownlee, Matt Goodfellow and Roger Stevens for 9+
