Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See? by Bill Martin and illustrated by Eric Carle turns fifty this year. There is a wonderful exhibit of all of the books in this series at the Eric Carle museum in Amherst, Massachusetts.
http://www.carlemuseum.org/ Children all over the world have enjoyed listening to this book being read to them and then experience the magic of reading the book over and over to themselves. The illustrations of Eric Carle enable the reader to imagine the words in all of his glorious colors and patterns. Students in our early childhood and kindergarten program experience this book and other books by Bill Martin and illustrated by Eric Carle. They quickly learn the pattern of these books and can chime in, reading with their teachers. Their own illustrations are influenced by the artistry of Eric Carle. These books have a timeless appeal and even older readers take delight in reading the books in this series. The picture below is of Bill Martin and Eric Carle- such a talented team.
At Abington Friends, students listen to books read aloud by teachers not just in reading workshop, but as part of social studies, in science, math and in art.
There are
great benefits to reading aloud to children. One of the most powerful tools for
expanding a child’s vocabulary is listening to books that have interesting
words in them. Picture books are
meant to be read aloud and often contain sophisticated words. If a child is
already reading, then listening to a book of interest written at one or two
grade levels above their current grade level will also promote vocabulary
growth. When encountering a word new for a child, prompt the child to use the
context clues from the story and the sentence to guess the meaning. Then,
explain the word and have the child quickly relay the meaning of the word back
to the story.
Reading aloud promotes a strong model for children. When
listening to stories at home, the child sees that the family member reading
aloud is engaged in reading and that this is an important activity in the home.
At school, students have an opportunity to listen to a range of books read
aloud for a variety of purposes.
At both home and at school, the attention span of the child is increased
as they listen to stories for longer periods of time and as the complexity of
the stories increase. Reading level and listening level are different. As the
child begins to read, shared reading with easy books will contribute to
feelings of success for the child. Reading more advanced books to the child
will instill a love of books and motivation.
Recent books being read aloud by teachers and our librarians include books by Stacy McAnulty, our visiting author on Thursday November 10th. Additionally in third grade, Where the Mountain Meets the Moon is sparking deep thinking and writing and in fourth grade The Sign of the Beaver connects to social studies while Freedom Train written by Evelyn Coleman, our visiting author in October for our fourth grade is inspiring our students to think deeply about character in reading workshop and to explore big issues of class and race in America in the late 1940's.
The following link to Read Aloud America 2016, is a great resource for families to use at home in selecting books to read with their children.
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