How to get young or very busy children to sit during story time

       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.