Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Books With Repetition

I know I have written about this before, but reading books with repetition to young children, even pre-readers is a great way to build many different emergent reader skills.

One book with repetition that is fun to read is The Napping House by Audrey Wood. This book is all about a house on a rainy day where the grandma, the child and all the animals are napping... in the same bed.  That is until the wakeful flea bites the mouse and wakes everyone up!


So what makes this book so great for young children?  How does it help them to learn to be readers?  Well the first feature is the predictability in the repetition.  In the napping house each page ends with "in a napping house, where everyone is sleeping."  Children catch on to that repetition very quickly and soon they will begin saying the words with you as you read them.  Next, when the child is "reading" the book by themselves you will notice that the say the repeated phrase over and over."  Then, when you are reading to them you will notice that they will begin to point to the repeated phrase and that will slowly evolve to pointing to each word in the repeated phrase.  This is called one-to-one matching or corresponding- and early reader skill.  It is repeated phrases like this one that help children to become readers.  

A few other things that this book has that helps children become readers is pictures that match the words.  The Napping House is a progressive book.  On each page someone new climbs into the bed.  For a child that is beginning to read they will be able to use the picture to figure out who gets in the bed next.  The pictures help to give meaning to the text. 

Lastly, this book has great vocabulary.  Here are all the different words that the author uses for the word sleep: napping, snoring, dreaming, dozing, snoozing and slumbering.  What great words for kids to learn.  When reading this aloud take time to point out how all those words mean the same thing- sleep!  

Here are some other books we love to read that have repetition to help young children become readers:

Goodnight Gorilla
Click, Clack, Moo
Jump, Frog, Jump
No David
Brown Bear, Brown Bear

Happy Reading!
Laura

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