How do you read a picture book for kids?

Many factors go into making a children’s book a hit in your home or classroom. The story, the pictures, and the characters are all important.

Your role in reading the book is an important factor as well.

Here are 5 Simple Reading Tips you can try when reading picture books to children.

1) Create interest in the story by discussing the cover. Before you open the book, read the title of the book. If your children are beginning to read, have them help you read the title of the book. Point out the characters. Count objects. Look for colors. Ask the children what they think the title means. Look at the illustration on the cover of the book. What is happening in the picture? Do you think the picture tells you something about the story? It might!

2) You don’t have to read every word on the page. You can adapt the story so that your children can understand what is happening. You might have a great book with beautiful pictures and a wonderful story, but the text in the book is too difficult for your kids. It’s okay to change some words, skip some text, and adapt the story to suit the level of the children you are reading to. Use the illustrations to help you tell the story at a level that makes sense for your situation.

3) Comment on the story while you are reading. Ask questions about and comment on what has happened so far. For example, if you are reading Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed, you can ask, How many monkeys are there now? What are they doing? Where is Mama?

You can ask the children to guess what might happen next, before you turn the page. Do you think the monkeys will jump on the bed again? What will Mama say? Which monkey will fall next?

Ask your emerging speakers simple yes/no questions or questions that can be answered with short answers to check for comprehension. Are the monkeys sleepy? Is Mama angry? Do you think that hurts?

Illustrations are very helpful here, because you can ask children to come to the book and point to something. Where is the doctor?  Can you point to the bed?  I see a telephone…can you find it?

4) Change your voice for each character. When you read a book aloud, try becoming all of those characters. Change your voice for the characters. You can speak in a whisper for a shy mouse. You can speak angrily. You can speak in a loud silly voice. You can speak in a quiet voice. Even when you have only one character, have fun changing your voice. This will make the story more entertaining and help the children understand which characters are talking.

As a bonus, you help children learn new words, such as shyly, angrily, happily, and sadly, because children will match your tone of voice to the words in the book and to the pictures on the pages.

5) Make sure everyone can see every page. When you read aloud to only one or two children, you can hold the book in your lap. It’s the same way you hold a book when you read to yourself.

When you read to a larger group, hold the book so that the pictures face out towards the group.

You might prefer to hold the book on your lap, because your lap is a stable place and your arms are less likely to get tired. If you do this, you will need to read upside-down. If you are unfamiliar with the book, it’s a good idea to read the story to yourself a couple of times before reading it to a group of children.
Other teachers prefer to hold to the book to one side. Reading sideways is usually easier than reading upside-down. However, larger picture books can be harder to hold this way, and you might not be able to read the words on the page that are farther away from you.

When you read to a larger group, sit on a chair or stand so that you and the book are above the group. This will make it easier for everyone to see.

Make sure that you show the pictures to all of the children in the group. Move the book slowly from one side of the group to the other so that everyone has a chance to see.

Do you have any Simple Reading Tips to share?

Coming up: more Simple Reading Tips!

Holy hairballs, folks!  Do you ever read a book that gives you so many a-ha! moments that you’re just bursting to share it with others? Well that’s what happened when I read Reading Picture Books with Children: How to Shake Up Storytime and Get Kids Talking About What They See by Megan Dowd Lambert.

I was first alerted to Megan and her work by the great folks at Storytime Underground.  Then I got a hold of her book and I read the entire thing in one sitting (and read it a second time the next day!).  Lightbulbs were going off left and right!

Megan writes about the Whole Book Approach in which “children’s active participation in making meaning of all they see and hear during a picture book reading takes precedence over moving through the pages at the pace of the adult’s oral reading of the text.” She talks about reading the whole book with children – the illustrations, the design, the pacing, the cover, the end papers, all of it.  Reading her book truly made me consider the picture book as a piece of art, not just a container of stories.  Her approach shifts storytime from a performance to leading “co-constructive storytimes” where kids are engaged and talking during the reading of the book, not just before and after.

I think one of the reasons Megan’s approach hit home for me is that she respects kids.  Plain and simple.  The focus of her storytimes aren’t the songs, rhymes, or books – it’s the kids who attend them and their ideas, opinions, and observations.  She even says – “the child’s voice is crucial to the success of a dynamic and, yes, playful storytime experience.” I feel like that’s a philosophy I’ve been trying to put into practice for a long time now, and Megan’s book has given me some great ideas for how to make it happen.

One of the biggest things I took away from this book is to SLOW DOWN.  Like, a lot.  Sometimes I think back on storytimes where I tried to squeeze in 4 or 5 picture books to a group of preschoolers in 30 minutes.  Looking back, I see so many missed opportunities to listen.  In fact, one of my favourite quotes from Megan is: “I rededicated myself to listening – really listening – to what children had to say about the books I read with them instead of just listening for them to say things that I’d already considered.”  WHOA. Now that’s keeping it real, folks.

I admire how Megan’s Whole Book Approach also seeks to keep the tone of storytime playful.  She shares numerous examples of the hilarious and insightful things kids have said during a reading with her.  During one of my recent preschool visits, a 3-year-old girl told me, “you need rain clouds to make frozen yogurt.”  I eventually realized this had to do with her understanding of temperature and ice cream, but this little nugget would have never come about if I hadn’t spent time talking about the front matter which was covered in clouds.  At the end of Reading Picture Books with Children, Megan provides an array of prompts and questions you can use in your own storytimes to elicit these types of discussions.

This is one of those professional development books that I’ll read again and again as I try out the strategies of the Whole Book Approach.  Megan’s model positions “the picture book as a meeting space for child and adult,” and that’s a message that rings true to me in both my personal and professional lives.

For More Information:

Kirkus Review

School Library Journal: An Interview with Megan Dowd Lambert

Megan Dowd Lambert on Twitter

Full Disclosure: I received no payment, no ARCs, no monetary reimbursement of any kind for writing this review.  I simply read the book, loved it, and wanted to share it with others. I received Megan’s permission to include the quotations from her book.