How to read picture books skillfully? Bilingual mothers give these seven questions to make parent-child reading more effective.

Teacher Fenfang: Master of Peking University, now living in the United States. Born in English education, I used to be an English teacher in a foreign language primary school in Beijing.

At the beginning of 20 13, Fangfang and Dabao, who was 1 year old, embarked on the road of English enlightenment; Since then, he has focused on family English enlightenment and founded the official WeChat account: qxmmwyf.

Every mom and dad and baby are busy every day, especially the children who go to school. If you can insist on parent-child reading in the daily homework+interest class, it is very precious and precious parent-child time. However, in the process of parent-child reading, some mothers report that they always feel something is missing just by reading. How can they read a book thoroughly with their children?

If you have this question, you can take a look at the advice of Mr. Milby, an American education expert. In Scholastic's column, he suggested that parents learn to ask questions in parent-child reading. Specifically, they should ask the following seven questions before, during and after reading. Below I will list seven questions and add my practical experience as an example to help parents better understand.

0 1

What do you think will happen in this story?

Before you start reading, when you show your child the cover of the picture book, you can throw this question out and ask your child. The purpose of this question is to attract children's attention and guide them to find clues from the title and illustrations of the cover, so as to make reasonable inferences. When a child has his own ideas, he is eager to verify himself from reading and can't wait to start reading.

For example, the following picture book is (not) mine.

Seeing these two furry little guys huddled in chairs, as the mother of two children, I suddenly relaxed and felt so real and fun. I asked two children with the cover: two vague creations sitting on a chair. What do you think will happen in this story?

A seven-year-old baby will infer from the title of the book, but there are brackets in the title. What is mine? Or is it (not) mine? He has some doubts.

My three-year-old sister likes to observe the expression of the task on the cover: "They are crazy." When the observation was in place, I immediately added: "Yes, they are angry with each other. What do you think is the possibility of this story? "

Here, mothers can wait patiently for their children's answers, and children can answer in Chinese or English. If the child doesn't answer, the mother doesn't have to force the child to say it. Mothers can answer by themselves and show their children. Through your demonstration, children will know how to answer such questions.

02

What do you think the next word should be?

This question is suitable for children with enlightenment foundation. In the process of reading, mother covered a word. Asking children this question can cultivate their syntactic ability, because children need to think about what kind of word this covered word is. Nouns? Verb? Adjective? Or a word that rhymes with the previous word? He will choose a suitable word from his own language vocabulary according to his own thinking. At the same time, it is also a good training for children's observation, because he needs to think through the clues given by the illustrations in the book.

If you think it is difficult for a child to ask this question when reading for the first time, then the mother can ask this question after reading repeatedly according to the child's situation. In this way, children have an understanding of picture books and are more willing to try boldly on familiar content.

For example, in the picture book Down by the Bay, I mentioned the method of "sticky notes" in the article "From parent-child reading to independent reading, mom tries these little things".

For example, a sentence in a picture book: You have seen a snake bake a cake. Stick the words snake and cake on a post-it note. The child can tell that two nouns are stuck by A in this sentence, and can guess snake and bake according to the picture.

03

What's the character's name again?

The question is what are the names of the characters in the book? This is a question about details. Asking children this question in the process of reading can concentrate their attention and train their memory ability.

For example, my almost seven-year-old boss is studying in my weird school. There are many roles in the school, such as students A.J., Ryan, Andrea Young, teacher Miss Daisy, Mrs Roopy, Ms Hannah, and principal Mr. Klutz. When reading a book, sometimes the characters are easily confused, so it will be much clearer to ask.

In some popular science books, such as Liao Dan's picture book Dinosaur Encore, there are many dinosaur names in it. To tell the truth, we adults may forget what is behind and what is in front. At this time, we might as well recall it with our children. Maybe the children will use his strong memory to help you. Haha, of course, we can also go back and review.

04

Which word do you think best describes this role?

This question is to ask children: which words do you think can describe the characteristics of the characters in the book?

It sounds like a difficult question, doesn't it? There may be mothers who are worried that their children's vocabulary is insufficient and can't answer this question. It doesn't matter. Actually, you can answer in Chinese. And some picture books are naturally very suitable for this problem. Let me give you an example, and everyone will understand. Is Liao your mother Alama? This book is very suitable for this problem.

This book describes the characteristics of bats, swans, cows, seals, kangaroos, alpacas and other animals in children's understandable language. By reading this picture book, children can learn descriptive vocabulary sentences and learn how to describe the characteristics of animals.

Similar picture books include hide-and-seek zoo, hide-and-seek farm and so on.

By using guessing to describe features, children can use their wisdom to guess what animal it is and learn descriptive vocabulary language at the same time.

05

Is there anything familiar to you in this book?

This is a question related to your own life: can you relate what happened in this book to what happened in your own life? Through this question, children can actively think about the connection between the contents of the book and their own lives.

Like a picture book, I am a rabbit.

Children will notice the changes throughout the year when reading. Mothers can guide their children to contact their own seasons and let them talk about what season we are in now. Which season do you like? For older children, mothers can even guide children to think about why there are changes all year round, and so on.

06

If this story is told from another character's point of view, what will be different?

I think this question is very high, which can improve children's thinking in one dimension: from the perspective of another character, will this story be different?

When we read a story, we read it from one angle, but what if we read it from another angle? Will it make any difference?

For example, when David goes to school, after reading it, you will find that the whole text is a teacher's tone.

But when children are reading, especially little boys, they will smile, chew gum, don't raise their hands, touch their painted hands everywhere and so on. These naughty behaviors are really written into the children's hearts. So this book is very popular with children.

If you ask this question at this time, what kind of story do you think it will be from David's point of view? Suppose you are David, tell this story to your mother. At this time, just wait for the child to surprise you. Whether he speaks Chinese or English, it is a very good oral expression training method.

07

Can you make up a different ending for this story?

This question is open-ended: can you think of different endings? However, this "thinking" is not a fantasy. Mothers can remind their children that they need to think according to the origin and development of the original story and think of another solution according to the conflict in the story.

For example, in the book "Alpaca Red Pajamas", the story is that after the mother and the alpaca said good night to each other, the alpaca went to bed and the mother went downstairs to do housework. The development of the story is that Llamalama can't sleep and wants her mother to accompany her. The story conflict is that her mother is answering the phone, and Llamalama wants her mother to accompany her at once.

If mom can't finish her phone call, or if mom really runs away from home, can you think about how this story develops? The mother guides the child to think about what will happen next.

If the child is in trouble, the mother can inspire the child: will the llama go downstairs to find her mother? What would Loma do if she found her mother still on the phone after she went downstairs? What story will happen?

The above seven questions are both detailed and open. After mother understands them, she can use different questions according to the characteristics of different picture books. So you don't have to ask all seven questions in a picture book, and you don't have to ask them all the time when you first read the picture book. Mom knows it well, and then she can master it flexibly according to the picture book and the child's situation.

I made a poster by hand. Although rough, when parents and children read, I always glance at these questions and give me good hints, so that I can lead out some questions at the right time and discuss them further with my children.

But I want to emphasize again that children should not be forced to answer in English. You can ask questions in English or explain your questions in Chinese. Children will naturally answer you in English if they are prepared for the language. If they answer in Chinese, there is no problem at all. Language is only a medium, and the cultivation of observation, reasoning, divergent thinking and logical thinking can give children real competitiveness.