The New Book: Careful Selection and Thoughtful Planning Required

Book introductions are an important scaffold for preparing students to read new material with success.  Through conversation, teachers help students to prime their thinking by connecting to their experiences and engaging their curiosity around the big ideas embedded in the text.  In By Different Paths to Common Outcomes, Marie Clay clarifies that book introductions do not involve simply telling children what to expect.  Instead, book introductions, explore, test out and draw on children’s knowledge and allow the teacher to provide novel information that would support reading with meaning (Clay, 2014).  In this way, book introductions ensure that students are actively thinking about the meanings embedded in a text so that they are able to use meaning as a source of information to draw on while reading.  

 

Some considerations for planning:

-        What in this text appeals to the reader? 

-        How does this text offer support for constructing meaning (e. g., predicting, making inferences)?   How might I engage the reader in these activities? Might I need to model some of these behaviours?

-        What kinds of input am I hoping to get from the reader? 

-        What print features support reading for meaning?  Are there any print features that make reading for meaning difficult?  If yes, how will I prepare the reader for a successful first reading?

-        How accessible is the language in this text?  Are there any unusual language structures that I might need to work into the conversation?

-        Do I need to provide support around the text structure (sequence, cause/effect, etc.)?  

-        How do the illustrations help the reader construct meaning? Might there be something in the illustrations that needs clarification?

 

Further reading:

Clay, Marie M. (2014). Introducing Storybooks to Young Readers. In By Different Paths to

Common Outcomes (pp 186-199).  New Zealand: Global Education Systems Ltd.

Downend, Cindy and Sisk, Helen (2015). Thinking about Text Choices for Readers who Struggle.

Retrieved from: https://lesleyuniversitycrrlc.wordpress.com/2015/06/23/thinking-about-text-choices-for-readers-who-struggle-2/

 

“I regard meaning as the ‘given’ in all reading—the source of anticipation, the guide to being on track, and the outcome and reward of the effort.” (Clay, 1991)