Many young toddlers, preschool and kindergarten children have a hard time
sitting for story time. This may be for
a variety of reasons, perhaps they have not been read to much, or their little
bodies just can’t sit still long enough to get interested. This is especially true for children with
developmental delays, speech/language delays, or kids that are on the autism
spectrum. When they come to school, they
are just unable to sit through a story.
Having some type of manipulatives to engage the child during
the story can be very One method is to have stuffed animals or
little people to represent the characters in the story (or actual toddler size
clothes and shoes and pumpkin mask for The Little Old Lady that was not afraid of
Anything). The children have to
wait their turn to have the opportunity to select the character that represents
the pages as you read through. Some very
young children may need to hold the animal.
Most are able to put the animal in the correct spot to “act out” the
story.motivating to help the child stay with the group.
For example they may (one at a time) put the animals under a chair to represent the cave in Bear Snores On. Or put the animals on a toy bus in The
Little School Bus. You could use an old white T-shirt and sew the two
sides together in the shape of a big Mitten for the children to put the animals
into for The Mitten. The small
stuffed animals can be found easily at dollar, discount or thrift stores (I
raided the closet of my teenage daughter).
Another type of manipulative that is very helpful are
flannel board pieces to represent the characters of the story or sequence cards. Have the pieces on a selection board, and
have the children take turns selecting the correct piece to place on your
classroom story board. You can find clip
art to represent the characters on line, draw your own characters or find
premade sets of popular children’s books online. There are different ways to make them. You could print them out on a T-Shirt iron-on
transfer and iron on a piece of felt for traditional felt pieces. I like to print out on card stock, laminate
with heavy film and use hook Velcro dots on the back (and place on a felt
board). You could also use magnet dots
on the back if you use a metal story board. Click here for story sets with flannel pieces/sequence cards. See Free Stuff for flannel board std for some favorite books.
A third type of manipulative is to have simple sentences or
actions with pictures that you glue directly into your book and have the
children use Velcro pieces as you go through the story. You may need to take apart your book, glue on
the pieces, laminate and then reassemble your book
adding the Velcro dots last. A comb,
spiral binding or rings work well because they allow for the extra thickness of
each page.
The key is to get the children interested in sitting for a
story. As an early childhood special
education teacher, I would often read the same story every day for 2
weeks. I would use the stuffed animals
the first couple days, then move to the flannel board pieces. The last week I was able to read the story
without the props. I always try to
choose books with repeating lines (such as “But the bear snores on” ), so the
kids are able to repeat (as a group) the line for each page, or do actions
(such as for The Little Old Lady that was Not Afraid of Anything or We’re
going on a Bear Hunt) as we read through the story. It's nice to send home a simple take home version of the story at the end of the unit so the child can "read" it to his/her family. Click here for story sets of favorite children's stories with simplified books to send home.
