An easy way to begin a book introduction is to think in terms of the problem and resolution of the story. For example, the book Mushrooms for Dinner (Randell, 1996), might be introduced by saying, “Father Bear had not been able to catch any fish for dinner, so Baby Bear went into the forest to look for mushrooms. After looking high and low, he finally found some and took them home for dinner.” Following this quick introduction, teacher and students look at the picture on each page to predict where Baby Bear looked and whom he asked for help. On page 5, the teacher might draw attention to the phrase “uphill and downhill”, asking students to locate the unknown words uphill and downhill. When queried as to how they located those words, children may comment on the first letters, or they may point out the smaller words within the big words. The word can might be a known word to children, and the teacher might ask them to locate this known word on page 11. Now the children are ready to begin reading. They are set for success because they understand the plot of the story, as well as some simple decoding that will occur. The teacher may be tempted to solve all potential problems during the book introduction. However, it is wise to leave some work for the children to do. For example, on page 7 in this same story, the teacher may be concerned about whether children will be able to read the word away. The thinking teacher may choose not to address this particular word in the book introduction because they want to observe what the child will do at this point of difficulty.
Strategic Prompting During the Child’s First Reading of the Text
Gonzalez and Author (2020) wisely counsel us that by “prompting during reading, teachers can give students access to the cueing systems” (p. 70).When the child miscues, the orchestration of meaning, structural, and visual information has broken down. As the teacher is listening to the child read aloud, she must do a quick mental analysis of what happens when the child comes to a point of difficulty. She mentally analyzes which sources of information the child is using and neglecting during the problem-solving process. Her prompting will cue the child to incorporate the specific source of information that was neglected.
Let us look at some examples. If the text states that a horse is being taken back to the stable, but the child reads about the horse being taken back to the stay, meaning has broken down. The teacher knows this because the sentence does not make sense. The substitution begins with the same three letters as the word in the text. Therefore, the child is using some phonetic information. In terms of meaning, structural, and visual sources of information, it is the meaning that has completely disappeared. Therefore, the teacher could prompt the student by saying one of the following:
Read that again and think about what is happening in the story.
Did that make sense?
You said you were taking the horse to the stay. Does that make sense?
The child then rereads the sentence, making sure that the meaning is restored. Children need to understand that reading must always make sense. In fact, when meaning breaks down, the child must learn that it is their job to go back and make the reading make sense. Author and Author (2022) emphasize this by stating, “This understanding needs to happen at the earliest levels of reading instruction. It is never ok to read something that does not make sense” (p. 87).
Very often, meaning and structure work together in the problem-solving process. This is because our oral language development relies so heavily on the integration of meaning and structure. A teacher wanting to prompt specifically for structure might say one of the following:
Can we say it that way?
You said _____. Can we say it that way?
Check it. Does it make sense and sound right to you?