Howard_Samanatha_Storytelling Reflection_Blog #2

 

As a teacher and parent, I knew going into this week’s storytelling experience that reading aloud to young children has massive amounts of benefits. However, I couldn’t name them all off the top of my head other than to say, “Of course reading to children is important!” The readings from this week helped me understand the data behind the importance of reading to children of all ages, but especially young children starting at birth. A 2015 study by Montag, Jones, and Smith revealed explicit data that showed reading books to infants and young children helped with learning new words more than just simple conversation did. They detailed, “The present results directly link early book reading to language acquisition and suggest a possible mechanism for which book reading benefits language acquisition” (p. 1495).

While simply reading aloud to a child does introduce them to new words, they have to be fully engaged and excited about a book to take in the full benefits. When choosing my read aloud for this Storytime experience, I wanted to pick a book that I personally found exciting so that excitement would convey in my reading. Similarly, I wanted a book that I knew kids would also find exciting and funny. We Will Rock Our Classmates by Ryan T. Higgins has the perfect amount of high interest with a dinosaur main character, plus humor on every page through the illustrations and text.

Additionally, as a teacher and librarian, I knew that this book could be tied to the academic standards I was addressing with my second graders in summer school. However, not every educator knows the best way to connect read alouds and texts with their lessons. Romero and Armstrong’s article “Sharing the Secret Sauce: Engaging Early Childhood Educators in Library Storytime Practices” shared a great way that local libraries can partner with nearby schools to strengthen Storytime experiences for educators and their students. Through a partnership program, public libraries conducted professional development for teachers to have good Storytime practices and strategies to use in their classrooms.

After I had chosen my book, and written my accompanying lesson plans, I conducted my Storytime with a small group of second graders in a library setting. I had already introduced the character, Penelope the dinosaur, on Monday through the book We Don’t Eat Our Classmates by the same author, and the students were so excited to see her in the book again, along with the ferocious goldfish. While I filmed my read aloud for ISCI 600 separately so that no students would be present, the actual Storytime experience in the library was much more engaged! On every single page the students wanted to point out something in the illustrations or comment on something the text said. They were 100% engaged in the story and loved interacting with me as I read it to them. They especially love it whenever the giant dinosaurs act like regular humans, such as when Penelope was trying to find her parents in the crowd and they clearly towered above everyone else.

My experience reading with my students helped me understand the article by Cahill, Joo, Howard, and Walker where they examined why parents brought their children back to story times at the library, and why they would bring them back again. The data in the article suggests that most parents bring their children because the child themselves enjoys the experience, they get to socialize with their peers, and they learn something new (2020, p. 338). I felt this data was also the reason that I as a teacher continue to do story times and using books by the same author in this experience. My second graders truly enjoyed the story, they got to talk about it with their classmates, and they were learning new vocabulary and reading comprehension skills. It was a win-win for me and the students!

Reflecting on my overall experience, I will definitely read this story again in the future and may add in a few more elements. I felt I did a good job expressing fluent reading skills as well as expressing character’s emotions. However, I would love to improve on having more engagement with the story by possibly using puppets or other interactive elements. It would also be fun to have my students be the ones to voice the children’s characters in the book!

Furthermore, Ryan T. Higgins has his own YouTube channel that is very engaging and fun. Check it out below:

References:

Cahill, Joo, S., Howard, M., & Walker, S. (2020). We’ve been Offering It for Years, But Why Do They Come? The Reasons Why Adults Bring Young Children to Public Library Storytimes. Libri (København), 70(4), 335–344. https://doi.org/10.1515/libri-2020-0047

Montag, Jones, M. N., & Smith, L. B. (2015). The Words Children Hear: Picture Books and the Statistics for Language Learning. Psychological Science, 26(9), 1489–1496. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797615594361

Romero, & Armstrong, L. A. (2017). Sharing the Secret Sauce: Engaging Early Childhood Educators in Library Storytime Practices. Children & Libraries, 15(4), 8–11. https://doi.org/10.5860/cal.15.4.8

Reading Log for Module 2:

Legend	The Legend of Sleepy Hollow	Washington Irving
Legend	Robin Hood	James Baldwin
Legend	Atlantis: Legend of the Lost City	Christina Balit
Legend	John Henry	Julius Lester
Legend	The Legend of the Loon	Kathy-Jo Wargin
Legend	The Legend of the Jersey Devil	Trinka Hakes Noble
Folktale	Stone Soup	Jon J Muth
Folktale	Paul Bunyan	Steven Kellogg
Folktale	Pecos Bill	Steven Kellogg
Folktale	The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses	Paul Goble
Folktale	Baba Yaga and Vasilia the Brave	Marianna Mayer
Folktale	The Firebird	Jane Yolan