Activity: Labeled Drawings

Label your child's drawings to demonstrate sounding out words and to show that writing communicates a message.

Isadora has recently really been into drawing - it's a new thing. While they were little scribbles before, there are now heads emerging and occasionally a leg or hand. In any case, I will ask them what they are and she has a quick answer. "Lincoln with crazy hair" or "Fog" or "Wonderland."

(A parental side note: Fog and Wonderland look almost exactly the same by the way...just a lot of crazy circling. I think Fog was probably the most appropriate title.)

I have been taking a pen and writing her titles underneath, sounding the words out methodically as I go along. Occasionally I will stop and ask her for a letter if I think she knows it. Most of the time I just let her watch me as I sound it out.

Almost all kindergarten or first grade classrooms do this exact exercise - the children will draw a picture and the teacher comes around, asks them what the drawing is about, and then writes it down for them or writes it on a post-it note for them to transcribe onto their paper. Since Isadora doesn't have the fine motor control for that, I am just writing them for her.

Making the most of reading aloud 2

Becoming aware of your own reading process can help your child notice details in a book that they might not otherwise.
Today Isadora and I were reading a book together. I don't even remember the name of the book, except that it was about a cat and it was illustrated by Steven Kellog, one of my favorite illustrators. But this is what Isadora did that made me so surprised. As we opened the book, I asked her one of my favorite questions, "What do you think this story is going to be about?" And she responded, while stabbing at the photo on the front, "About the cat!" So this actually wasn't the surprising part - I'm getting to it. The surprising part came as I flipped to the the title page where the illustration showed a girl and an orange tabby cat walking among orange and red leaves that were falling across the page. There was no text other than the title. But I paused because I realized that as a reader I was already starting to gather quite a bit of information about the story just from the cover and the title page. I believe at some point I remarked on the leaves, but I asked Isadora, "Well, what time of year do you think this story takes place?" I really didn't expect much of an answer, because she only just turned three, but without missing a beat she said, "Fall! Because the leaves are falling!"
Now I really couldn't believe it!! And maybe this is something that only a geeky mother like myself would love, but here's what she was doing: she was using the pictures to gather information about the story just as I was! So I shared this long and drawn out story for two reasons. First, as you read aloud to your child become aware of the process that you engage in as a reader. Because picture books have such little text, the pictures contain lots of details that enrich the story, and you may notice (as I did) that you gather information from other sources besides just the print at the bottom of the page.
Two, once you become aware of your own reading process, talk about the book as you go through and explore some of these things with your child. In this way, you are making your own process explicit. Some of the questions I ask Isadora are about the characters emotions ("How do you think the cat feels about that?") because they rarely go into this in picture books. And of course my famous, "What do you think this story is going to be about?" I'll also ask her, "What do you think will happen next?" Occasionally, if she makes a prediction, I'll ask her why she thinks that. That last question hasn't produced any results yet - she usually gives me a blank stare and says, "I don't know," as she impatiently waits for me to turn the page of the book. All in good time.