Positive Relationships: Working with Parents - Book talk

Is anything lovelier than snuggling up with a book with a child or small group of children? We all really value those times, be it with our own children, or those in our care in our setting. But are we getting the most out of our book times with children, and is this scenario being reflected in the homes of all our children?

When most adults share a book with a child, they read and the child listens. There is definitely a place for enjoying the rhythm of a familiar story and delighting in the flow of the text, but children also need opportunities to be actively involved in the story, to hypothesise, explore, question, reflect, and empathise.

To help practitioners and parents maximise both the pleasure and the learning from sharing books with children, Suffolk County has developed 'Stories Together', a series of mini guides to accompany some of children's best-loved picture books, with sections including 'New words', 'Things to talk about' and 'I wonder...' questions. The booklets evolved from a Dialogic Book Talk project developed at Meadow Children's Centre and are now available from Essential Reading Plus (see boxes).

SO WHY DO WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT BOOKS?

Talking about books opens up the child's prior experiences and understanding and they begin to have ownership of the discussion.

When looking at the book, Shark in the Park, the child will immediately be drawn to the fantastic illustrations in the book. Watch the child's eyes frantically flitting over the page. Take time for this to happen. Read the text or stay silent. A pause may result in a little nugget of information. 'When I went to the park with Grandma I fed the ducks... there wasn't a shark in that pond.' The child is bringing a little bit of their home life to the situation, sharing with you about their family, and you now know that Unique child a little better.

Talking about books provides opportunities for children to be completely immersed in communicating through talk. A child sharing We're Going on a Bear Hunt comments on the birds flying up from the trees in the picture of the family running down the hill. This then develops into a conversation about what may have made them do this and is extended further by a discussion about scarecrows.

Children's thoughts need to be supported by their talk, as Aidan Chambers says in Tell Me: Children, Reading and Talk, 'I believe that talk is essential in all our lives, not least because most of us, as the saying goes, do not know what we think until we hear what we say.'

Talking about books can focus on new words that occur in the text. In, for example, The Lighthouse Keeper's Lunch, we encounter lots of delicious new words such as perched, appetising, ingenious, scrumptious and expectant to discover and explore.

We can focus on the rhyming words and explore how they feel on our tongues and in our ears as well as how they look in print, maybe even notice some similarities.

We can speculate about the amazing things that happen in a book. In The Snail and the Whale we can wonder 'How big is a whale?' 'What are the sharks thinking?' 'How did the snail learn to write?'

The child must be at the heart of the process - they are in charge. When we give them time and permission to express their own thoughts feelings and ideas, we really find out what is in the child's head.

SUPPORTING PARENTS

For parents to talk about books with their children, we must first engage their interest in reading. We are all aware that many of our children do not have a 'book rich' experience at home. Some children have none or very few books. Those children that have some books may have parents with low literacy levels who need further help, support and guidance.

Practitioners need to recognise the importance of books and share their creative and innovative ways of having 'fun' with books. This requires an effective relationship to be established between the practitioner (key person) and the parents. A solid partnership with parents in the setting can enable parents to become more confident with the, sometimes scary, world of 'literacy'.

• It is vital that children and families have access to books - 'real books' that they can enjoy together. Settings can lend the books to the families, ensuring the children are engaged in choosing the books.

• Settings should be proactive in supporting the local library service - it's a great way to access books.

• Promote and celebrate the Bookstart scheme with events in the setting that encompass the books and related activities and provide parents with further ideas of how to share books with their child.

• Hold open sessions - activities focused on books and modelling how to talk about and use them.

• Set up a reading cafe - a regular monthly event after the session focusing on a specific book and engaging dialogue between both parents and children about the book

• Have bedtime storytelling sessions at the setting. Children return to the setting in the evening in pyjamas with parents and share books and maybe a cup of hot chocolate, before going home to bed.

IMPORTANT MESSAGES

Having engaged parents' interest in reading, there are important messages that we can pass on to them about the process of sharing and talking about stories:

• Encourage parents to really know the story before they share it with the children. Really looking at the book through the eyes of the children will enable them to think carefully about the types of discussion that might come from this. 'Book talk' provides an opportunity to talk about meanings of new words that the children may encounter and provides a discussion about these - so extending children's vocabulary.

• Encourage them to allow children to take ownership of their reading. Yes, parents can facilitate and support their child, but ultimately it is about the child taking the lead.

• Let parents know that it's okay if their child wants to start by looking at the back page of the book and then look at the centre pages.

• Make it clear to parents that it is great when the child wants the same book over and over again. They are showing a preference and parents can develop their interest by provoking different and deeper discussions about the book.

• When children are empowered and they are given control of their reading and book choices, they can then become reflective and responsive readers. They can say what they like about books and why this appeals to them.

• Talking about books is about reading more deeply into the story. If a child really loves the illustrations on a specific page of the book, sharing this particular page may form the basis of the discussion

• Ultimately, talking about books enables both children and parents to spend quality uninterrupted time sharing books together, with the child taking the lead. A truly responsive parent is engaging with their unique child. This in turn will develop a lifelong love of reading and will ensure that parents get to know their child a little better every time.

HOW STORIES TOGETHER EVOLVED

As part of the Every Child a Talker project, staff at MeadowBrook Playcare in Saxmundham were fully aware of the importance of good-quality books and stories to enrich learning and were confident in reading and telling stories. However, they were less confident in stimulating the discussion and debate around a story that can really enrich a child's speech and language.

In order to encourage the staff to develop their use of Dialogic Book Talk, Helen Roscoe, then the qualified teacher support in the centre, developed Dialogic Book Talk Tags, to be used alongside the children's favourite books. Each page of the tags focuses on a different theme, for example 'Rhyming words', 'Describing the pictures', 'Feelings of the characters', 'Suggestions of things to talk about', 'I wonder questions' and 'New vocabulary'. Practitioners used them to scaffold their talk about the book with a child or small group of children.

At the same time Meadow Children's Centre, where the pre-school is located, was also working on engaging parents with reading to their children. This was in response to low Communication, Language and Literacy Development (CLLD) scores in the reach area for the centre. They began to develop the 'Book of the Month' focusing on a different book each month and incorporating it into sessions and displays so the children attending the centre became very familiar with it.

To further engage parents in reading with their children the centre bought six copies of each book and created a Book of the Month bag which contained the book, a book talk tag, an audio version of the story and some further information for parents on sharing books. They then established a borrowing system so parents could take home the books and share them with their child at home.

Parents often couldn't wait for the next book to come and feedback about the Book Talk Tag was very positive:

'I love the Book Talk Tag - full of great ideas. It's amazing when you start discussing the words and pictures what wonderful thoughts my kids had about the book,' said one parent.

'Using the Book Tags has given me more confidence when sharing books with the children. It has made me notice things about the books that I can share with the children and then they can share things they notice with me,' said another.

The concept of Book Talk Tags was shared with other ECaT settings in the county as an example of good practice, and also with teachers as part of the county Letters and Sounds training.

Helping Helen to develop the Book Talk Tags was Claire Bates, co-ordinator for Suffolk's Every Child A Talker (ECaT) programme, as well as other colleagues and practitioners involved in ECaT. Also providing input was author and teacher Amy Arnold, who has taught across the primary phase, predominantly in Early Years and Key Stage One.

Keen to spread this good practice wider, Suffolk County Council decided to obtain the necessary permissions to publish the Book Talk Tags under the new name 'Stories Together' and distributed them to all settings who are in their Directory of Providers with accompanying books. All providers in Suffolk can engage in dialogic book talk with their children and can encourage parents to do the same.

STORIES TOGETHER

The Stories Together booklets (£2.75 each) developed by Suffolk County Council provide prompts for sharing and talking about a series of popular picture books with young children. Available from www.essentialreadingplus.co.uk the series includes:

• All Join In by Quentin Blake

• The Bear Under the Stairs by Helen Cooper

• Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell

• Dirty Bertie by David Roberts

• The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler

• The Lighthouse Keeper's Lunch by Ronda and David Armitage

• Pants by Giles Andreae and Nick Sharratt

• Peace at Last by Jilly Murphy

• Rosie's Walk by Pat Hutchins

• Shark in the Park by Nick Sharratt

• The Snail and the Whale by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler

• Toddle Waddle by Julia Donaldson and Nick Sharratt

• Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak

The booklets can be bought with the picture book from £7.75

TIPS FOR TALKING ABOUT BOOKS

• Build up conversations slowly - children may not be used to talking with adults and other children in an informal, yet focused, way.

• Give children time to listen, formulate and communicate their ideas.

• 'Reveal yourself' in conversations by linking with your experiences. Support children in connecting with the world around them.

• Give children your full attention as you talk with them by using direct eye contact to show that you are really listening.

• Record children's responses in a non-intrusive way, for example, with a Dictaphone or recording pen, or scribe children's responses immediately after the session.

• Value and respect all children's ideas and contributions, there is no right or wrong or expected response.

Provided by Amy Arnold