Reading - kindergarten
Responding to literature
Reading - kindergarten children enjoy daily stories and poems. Responding to the literature that they have heard is a fun and creative experience for children.
Avoid the tendency to constantly use ready made worksheets, open up the imagination station and you will be surprised at how uniquely kids respond to literature.
As young children are read to again and again they learn that books are for reading, that the black marks on the paper represent words and letters, that letters represent sounds, that print is read from left to right, and that they can respond to the literature they hear in many different ways.
After reading a story through a number of times, discussing the images and how the artist created them, and clarifying the meaning of words and concepts in the story, the children usually react very enthusiastically to projects about the it.
Over the years, my students taught me that the important thing was to respond to the literature, not to spend days completing some great project I had thought up. A stick puppet with bits of lace glued on it became a princess in their eyes and they were ready to act out the story.
I encourage teachers to avoid getting children to color and glue exact replicas of the story characters. Instead, let children respond to them with modeling compounds, from "imagination station" type objects, scraps of colored construction paper or craft items such as colored popsicle sticks. The children really like making things that they can actually move around.
Other areas of responding to literature
Kindergarten children need opportunities to respond to literature with art, singing, and drama.
During reading kindergarten children need opportunities to make quality guesses for unknown words and events from language patterns and pictures.
Children's appreciation for good literature improves as they hear work from great authors and observe good illustrations.
During reading kindergarten children need opportunities to ask questions about what they have heard or read - does it make sense?
Kids need to ask why a character would do this or that, say when they don't understand something in the story, suggest why a character is excited or scared or sad.
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