1. Children’s Literature and Storytelling
Through the Eyes of a Child: An
Introduction to Children’s Literature
2. Chapter 1
The Child Responds to Literature
Objectives:
Teachers will:
Determine the Value of Literature for Children
Promote Child Development Through Children’s Literature
Examine Children’s Responses to Literature
Describe the Development of a Literature Program
3. Chapter 1
Outline
Value of Literature for Children
Promoting Child Development Through Literature
Children’s Response to Literature
Developing the Literature Program
4. Literature entices, motivates, and instructs.
Children who are successful at becoming
literate view reading and writing as authentic
activities from which they get information and
pleasure, and by which they communicate
with others.
5. Value of Literature for Children
Books are the major means of transmitting our
literary heritage from one generation to the next.
Early childhood educators, Renea Aronld and Nell
Colburn advocate activities that promote early
literacy skills that help prepare children for school,
especially skills that encourage language
development in young children.
6. These activities include reading to children , singing songs with
children and pointing out letters in books as they are read (July
2007).
Carefully selected literature can illustrate the contributions and
values of many cultures. It is especially critical to foster an
appreciation of the heritage of the ethnic minorities in the society.
The vicarious experiences of literature result in personal
development as well as pleasure.
7. Another value of literature is that of developing
emotional intelligence.
Daniel Golman (1995) identifies five basic
elements of emotional intelligence that children
need:
1. Self-awareness, 2. managing emotions,
3. handling anxiety in appropriate ways,
4. motivating oneself and 5. sensitivity toward
others.
8. Arnold and Colburn (Jan. 2008) emphasize the importance
of developing emotional links during the first 5 years of
life.
They maintain that reading aloud strengthens bonds
between parents and children as well as developing a love
for books.
Children enjoy and evaluate illustrations and can explore
artistic media by creating illustrations of their own.
9. Promoting Child Development
Through Literature
Research in child development has identified stages in the
language, cognitive, personality, and social development of
children.
A. Language Development
Literature has profound influences on children’s language
development.
10. a. Preschool Children
During their first few years, children show
dramatic changes in language ability.
Most children learn language very rapidly.
They speak their first words at about 1 year of
age; at about 18 months, they begin to put words
together in two-word combinations.
11. The number of different two-word combinations increases
slowly, then it shows a sudden upsurge around age 2.
Speech usually becomes more complex by age 3, when most
children have added adverbs, pronouns, prepositions, and
more adjectives to their vocabularies.
Literature and literature-related experiences can encourage
language development in preschool children.
12. Book experiences in the home, at the library,
and at preschool can help children use
language to discover the world, identify and
name actions and objects, gain more complex
speech, and enjoy the wonder of language.
Books with repetitive language are excellent
for enticing listeners to join in during oral
reading.
13. b. Elementary-Age Children
Language development continues as children enter school and
progress through the grades.
Walter Loban (1976) conducted the most extensive longitudinal study
of language development in school-age children.
His work established the firm relationship between oral language
development and success at reading and writing. It provided the base
upon which our present-day thinking about the integrated language
arts curriculum rests.
14. Loban’s study (1976) found that children who were
superior in oral language in kindergarten and first grade
also excelled in reading and writing in sixth grade.
He concluded that teachers, librarians, and parents should
give greater attention to developing children’s oral
language.
Wordless picture books are excellent stimuli for oral and
written language.
15. Books that are written in two languages allow children to
see and hear another language as well as read or hear their
own language.
Books with vivid language, similes, and metaphors
stimulate language development and appreciation for
literary style.
Literature provide stimulus for the dramatic play and
creative dramatics that inspire children in the primary
grades to express themselves verbally with much
enjoyment.
16. c. Adolescents
Not only does language development continue, but
language requirements increase as students progress
into high school.
The books they read and the activities associated
with literature will encourage literary appreciation
as well as understanding.
In addition some of the authors of literature for
adolescents use writing styles that may help students
understand the writing process.
17. B. Cognitive Development
According to David Shaffer (1989) cognitive development
“refers to the changes that occur in children’s mental skills
and abilities over time”.
Factors related to helping children remember, anticipate,
integrate perceptions, and develop concepts fill numerous
textbooks and have been the subject of both research and
conjecture.
Jean Piaget and B. Inhelder (1969) maintained that the
order in which children’s thinking matures is the same for
all children, although the pace varies form child to child.
18. Children’s literature is especially effective for developing
the basic operations associated with thinking:
(1)observing
(2) comparing
(3) classifying
(4) hypothesizing
(5) organizing
(6) summarizing
(7) applying
(8) criticizing
19. Observing
Colorful picture books are excellent vehicles for developing
observational skills in both younger and older children.
Elaine Scott in her nonfiction book , When is a Planet not a
Planet, defines the term observation as “carefully watching how
something works”. She then describes how carful observations
lead to hypotheses, predictions, and scientific theories. However,
she also warns that scientific theories can change if new
information is discovered. Consequently, in some fields of study
continuing observation is essential.
20. Comparing
Picture books and other literature selections provide
opportunities for comparing.
(For example, “Hurry Up and Slow Down” may be compared with
versions of the “Tortoise and the Hare”)
Classifying
Concept books provide excellent stimuli for classifying.
Children must be able to classify objects or ideas before
seeing or understanding the relationships among them. i.e
Eric Carle’s “My Very First Book of Shapes”.
21. Hypothesizing
Several illustrated books encourage younger
children to hypothesize about what they will find
when they turn the page.
Books that encourage hypothesizing include texts or
illustrations in which children are asked to
speculate about what may happen next.
22. Organizing
Some nonfiction books provide visual guides that help students
understand a sequence of events. The sequence of events in Laura
Vaccaro Seeger’s “First the Egg” follows a number of transformations
in Nature. In addition to the transformation of egg to chicken, the
author includes cycles such as tadpole to frog and caterpillar to
butterfly.
Summarizing
Summarizing skills can be developed with literature of any genre or
level of difficulty.
Children can summarize stories orally or in writing and motivate
other children to read the same book or stories.
23. Applying and Responding
Young children need many opportunities to apply the skills,
concepts, information, or ideas in books. Concept Books and How-
to books provide numerous opportunities for children to see and
manipulate concrete examples, apply directions and enhance
appreciation of the concept.
Criticizing
Children should be given many opportunities to evaluate critically
what they read or hear. They develop critical evaluation skills
when they sense the appropriateness, reliability, value, and
authenticity of literature selections.
24. Research indicates that the levels and types
of questioning strategies used with
children affect their levels of thinking and
their development of critical, evaluative
skills.
25. c. Personality Development
“Personality characteristics are the traits that give each person a
unique style of reacting to other people, places, things and events.”
(George Maxim, 1993.)
To acquire these traits, children go through many stages of
personality development.
They gradually learn to express emotions acceptably, experience
empathy toward others, and develop feelings of self-esteem.
Literature can play an important role in helping children develop
positive and realistic self-concepts.
26. Egocentric feelings continue for several years, and young children
consider themselves the center of the universe.
If the development of self-esteem is to progress positively,
children need to know that their families, friends and the larger
society value them.
All children must feel pride in their accomplishments and their
cultural heritage and must develop positive sex-role
identifications.
Those who develop positive feelings of self-worth will be able
to assume responsibility for their own successes and failures.
27. Social Development
David Shaffer (1989) identified three ways in which socialization
serves society:
(1) as a means of regulating children’s behavior and controlling their
un-desirable or antisocial impulses.
(2) as a way to promote the personal growth of the individual
(3) as a means to perpetuate the social order.
Guidance for teaching good manners and developing courteous
behaviors is accomplished through humorous dialogue, puns, and
cartoon illustrations in Laurie Keller’s “Do Unto Otters: A Book About
Manners.”
28. Moral Development
Preschool children start to develop concepts of
right and wrong when they identify with their
parents and with parental values, attitudes,
and standards of conduct.
29. Lawrence Kohlberg considers the moral decisions
made, as well as the reasons for the decisions, when he
identifies the stages in moral development.
At Stages 1 and 2, Kohlberg’s “pre-conventional” level, a
child responds to external, concreate consequences.
During Stage 1, child chooses to be good, or to obey
rules, in order to escape punishment.
During Stage 2, a child obeys or conforms in order to
obtain rewards. Kohlberg’s stages and children’s ages
cannot be equated because some people progress more
rapidly through the sequence.
However, Stages 1 and2 apparently dominate the
behavior of most children during the primary grade.
30. Children’s literature contains numerous moments of
crisis, when characters make moral decisions and
contemplate the reasons for their decisions. Teachers or
other adults may need to help children understand
decision making if the decisions are beyond their moral
development.
31. Encouraging children to respond to the literature they read is one of the
most important tasks for adults who interact with children and literature.
*Factors Within Readers – Children bring past experiences, present
interests and expectations of stories with them when they read.
Developmental factors influence children’s response to literature.
Therefore, early and continual reading to children is extremely important.
*Factors within texts – each of the genres of literature has unique
requirements. Readers may respond to poetry differently than they
respond to biography.
*Factors Within Contexts - The literature environment influences
children’s responses to literature.
Children’s Response to Literature
32. Classifying children’s response to books
Type of Response Examples
Descriptive
Analytic
Classificatory
Personal
Interpretive
Evaluative
Retelling the story, naming the characters, listing
the media used in illustration.
Pointing to the uses of language, structure, point
of view in the work.
Placing the work in its literary historical context.
Describing the reader’s reactions to the work and
the emotions and memories that have been
evoked.
Making inferences about the work and its parts.
Relating the work to some way of viewing
phenomena (e.g., psychology).
Judging the work’s merit on personal, formal, or
moral criteria.
Source: Alan C. Purves and Dianne L. Monson, Experiencing Children’s Literature. Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman, 1984, p. 143.
33. A good literature program supports literacy
development at all levels.
An effective literature program requires a wide range
of books that are available for many purposes as well.
Developing the Literature Program
