Text | Yo-yo Mom
The official account | Yo-Yo Mom German Parenting
1.
Some time ago, when I was reading the picture book of the German children's literature master Mitchell Ender, I often received a message saying: "The child has gone to primary school, and I did not intend to buy a picture book for him."
From everyone's comments, I found a big cognitive misunderstanding, that is, children in elementary school do not need to read picture books.
What do elementary school students read? Some people may say that primary school students have begun to recognize words and can read bridge books or chapter books by themselves.
Yes, bridge books and chapter books are good reading materials for elementary school students, but they are not contradictory to picture books. Just as graded readings and picture books in English books are not contradictory, the coexistence of the two serves different educational purposes.
There is a type of bridge book and primary chapter book to allow children to transition from parent-child reading to independent reading, so the content and language of such books will be relatively simple and simple for primary school students' comprehension ability and knowledge.
Its main purpose is to practice independent reading, rather than to harvest content and depth of thinking through complex stories, such as the "Magic Treehouse" story series and the "Magical School Bus" bridge book series, the content and language are very simple.
There is also a class of picture books, the content and themes are more suitable for parents to read with their children, because their depth may be temporarily beyond the child's comprehension. The form of a picture book is to facilitate children's acceptance, and also to make parent-child reading more interesting and not boring.
For example, "War and Peace", "The Mountain of People", "The Cat Who Lived a Million Times" and Mitchell Ender's classic picture books are all thoughtful picture books that are very suitable for parents and primary school students to read and discuss together.
There is also the "Magic School Bus" picture book series, which is obviously more difficult than the bridge book! On the contrary, the picture book series is more suitable for parents and primary school students to read together.
So, don't be fooled by the name and form of the book, the content of the bridge book/primary chapter book is not necessarily more difficult than the picture book/picture book.
There is no such stereotype as "reading picture books before elementary school, only need to read bridge books/chapter books after primary school", but we should think clearly about what the purpose of reading is, and how big the substance of the book is suitable for children!
2.
Teachers and reading experts in German primary schools unanimously recommend that parent-child co-reading should last at least until the age of 10.
In yo-yo elementary school, her homeroom teacher would often tell children stories while they were eating breakfast, and often tell picture books! Because breakfast is only ten minutes long, the length of the picture book story is just right.
At lunchtime, the caregiver will also tell them stories, and the children will listen to them with relish.
Why do German experts recommend that parents and children read together until at least 10 years old? Let me give you a squeeze:
Phase 1:
Preschool reading is to edify language, establish the connection between images and words, absorb knowledge from books, and cultivate personality, at this time parent-child reading is the most appropriate.
The "Magic School Bus" bridge book is the first set of this series I bought, because its content and language are simple, which is very suitable for reading as a picture book with four or five years old Yo-Yo. I don't care what it's called "Bridge Book"!
Graded reading materials in English, because of the appropriate difficulty and short sentences, are also used by me as picture books to enlighten Youyou.
Stage 2:
Reading is to learn the language, learn to recognize words and read independently, then the content and language are relatively simple graded reading, bridge books and primary chapter books are very suitable for preschool to primary school children, while reading while learning to recognize words (or practice natural phonics).
Stage 3:
On the basis of the second stage, you may realize that your child can read words and read some simple bridge books.
But the books that these children themselves can read, the content themes and language are relatively simple, they can meet the purpose of literacy, but they cannot meet the needs of knowledge and thought.
Before the age of 10, a child's literacy cannot meet his or her need for knowledge growth and the exploration of thinking. It's not enough to throw a child into a pile of books and let them read themselves.
At this stage, parents also need to consciously take their children to read some more difficult books together, which can be picture books, chapter books, and popular science books, and the form is not limited. It is important to give children a steady stream of guidance and enlightenment from the intellectual and ideological aspects.
This process lasts a long time, and the 2nd and 3rd stages are the transition stage from learn to read (learning to read) to reading to learn (self-study through reading), which requires the patience of parents. This is why German teachers and reading experts recommend that parent-child co-reading should last at least until the age of 10.
Stage 4:
After the age of 10, when the child's literacy has reached the point where he can read hundreds of pages of chapter books, popular science books and literary works, when he can truly realize read to learn, parents can slowly let go of their children to absorb knowledge and ideas from the book.
3.
Educators realize that kindergarten-like education should still be used for primary school students, especially in the lower grades, and that adult-child co-reading is an absolutely essential activity!
Think about it, after your child goes to primary school, the time spent with his parents every day is very small. Many parents no longer play games with their children, and the so-called companion play has become a companion homework, a sparring piano, a sparring jump rope, or taking their children out to play.
In this case, parent-child co-reading is particularly precious, and it is a golden time to communicate and discuss with children, pull in distance, and maintain connections!
Parents and primary school students read together, in the book can choose a certain kind of intellectual and ideological challenges, such as Mitchell Ender, Lindgren, Paul Mal and other children's literature classics, two or three hundred pages of books do not matter, a dozen pages a day on the line.
You can also occasionally ask your child to pick some picture books that you read as a child and read them again.
There are several benefits to doing so:
First, when primary school students learn to write essays, they can often only write very simple stories at the beginning, and the difficult chapters and stories are very long, and the reference effect on children is limited.
On the contrary, the short picture book stories that I read when I was a child are more helpful for children to learn and imitate the written door small stories.
That is to say, when I was a child, I read picture books and paid more attention to the story and the picture content itself. After reading primary school, when reading old picture books with children, you can guide children to pay attention to the story structure (beginning, turn, end) and writing techniques, and use picture books as materials for learning to write essays.
Second, some picture book stories can be read at different ages and can be understood differently. With the increase of children's experience, these picture books are also worth taking out and reading repeatedly, I believe that children will have different feelings.
Some time ago, I received a box of picture books that I had lent to a friend, all of which I had read when I was three or four years old. Yu Yu opened the box, saw this box of old picture books that I had not seen in several years, and had to pull me to tell her all again
You can observe that children actually like to read their old picture books, on the one hand, they recall the feelings of their childhood; on the other hand, they can learn new things.
Third, because of the small number of words and simple content of the picture books when I was a child, I can also be used as materials for learning to read independently.
In short, the same book is read differently for different ages! Bridge books can be read together as picture books at a young age, and picture books can also be read as bridge books at the school age! All this depends only on the child's current cognitive development needs, and has nothing to do with the form of the book.
There is no contradiction between children reading by themselves and reading together with parents and children! Both must be done!
I now have about three days a week for Yo-Yo to read on her own, two days for me to tell her, one day to tell a story, and the other to tell a non-fiction popular science book. For a German book of one or two hundred pages that is too difficult, Yoyo wants to read it but does not want to read it himself, and Marx will also read it to Yoyo.
I cherish the time I spend with yo-yo parents in elementary school, and I know that there is not much time to snuggle up and enjoy reading together, and there is one less day to live.
Therefore, before the arrival of the child's adolescence and the abandonment of parent-child reading is too childish, I still try to accompany and guide her through co-reading!
Yo-Yo Mom in Germany on March 25, 2022
Author: Yo-Yo Mom, studying in the Netherlands to meet love, studying in Saudi Arabia to feel the exotic style, working in Ireland alone through pregnancy, raising two mixed-race female dolls in Germany, sister "Yo-Yo" 7 years old, sister "Ranran" 10 months, Father Marx is a German sociologist with a delicate appearance and a delicate heart. Share the interesting life and cultural collision of Chinese and Western families, and gain insight into German education. His masterpiece "Learning Parenting with German Mothers".