World Book Day is a wonderful day to celebrate with your little one but it doesn’t need to be all about dressing up or buying expensive costumes. Instead, World Book Day is about igniting that love of reading, making books come to life for our littles ones and enjoying some special bonding time together.
At Little Story Shapers, we celebrate books every day in class! We sprinkle ourselves with pretend imagination dust and jump into the wonderful world of story books. By giving stories an extra dimension, making the words jump out of the page, exploring it with all our senses and allowing our little ones to physically act out the story or have the world created around them, we nurture a love of books.
A love books is so crucial for our children because this is the first step to them learning to read themselves. If our little one’s love books, they’ll want to learn to read, they’ll have that desire, and passion for reading. If you’ve got a child that isn’t interested in books and reading, they’re less likely to want to pick up a book and start to learn to read themselves. So you’ve got a challenge from the beginning. Whereas if they love books, they’re going to be curious as to what the words say. From a very young age, children can learn stories off by heart without actually reading but they get the sense that they’re reading and so there’s that amazing feeling of achievement. We can then build on that with their phonological awareness, which we explore in our older classes, and start introducing those letters and early reading skills.
This year we have celebrated World Book Day all week in our baby and toddler classes in Chelmsford, Witham and Braintree. We brought to life the exciting story of Zip and the Magic Rainbow in our sensory classes and took children on an exciting journey into space!
Igniting a love of reading is something I feel extremely passionate about and I was delighted when the Braintree and Witham Times wanted to publish an article promoting all that we do at Little Story Shapers.
Read the full article here.
While children have tonnes of fun in fancy dress, the day is about more than dressing up, with many parents hoping it will encourage a love of reading.
Sarah Morgan, 36, is a mum to two young children, a former primary school teacher, and now runs her own reading and storytelling classes to build baby and toddlers’ love of reading from a young age.Sarah said: “World Book Day promotes books; it makes reading fun and exciting so we’re instilling that love of books early.
“From my experience of being a primary school teacher, the turning point for children learning how to read themselves is first that love of books.
“If they love books, they’re going to want to read.“ At a young age, they can’t read the words, but they can listen, and if we enthuse and inspire them and create imaginary worlds, they’re going to love picking up a book.”
Sarah founded Little Story Shapers five years ago and runs the storytelling and drama classes in Witham, Braintree and Chelmsford.
The main aim of the classes is to promote a love of reading and shape early reading skills, whilst also building confidence, communication skills and creativity through the storytelling elements.
She works closely with local author Justin Townsend, the author of Zip and Friends book series where the loveable pup journeys to find the different coloured arches of the rainbow. Sarah said: “This week we’re going to space, which is the arch of orange.
“We’ve been going to the moon, building rockets, singing nursery rhymes like ‘Zoom, Zoom, Zoom, We’re Going To The Moon’, and all different activities.
“The resources are on my website for parents to download, and I have other resources about how you can bring storybooks to life at home—like having a roleplay tea party when reading ‘The Tiger Who Came To Tea’.
“The children are going to be curious and hear the vocabulary as their parents read to them, which leads brilliantly to them being able to read themselves—because they’ll have the desire to want to read.”
Parents can enjoy trials of Sarah’s classes, with more information and storytelling resources on her website: www.littlestoryshapers.co.uk.
The Benefits of Reading
With a background in primary school teaching, I’ve seen first-hand the impact that reading and talking to your child has one your child. When they first start school, it is very noticeable because the children who have been read to have been exposed to so much more vocabulary and have a deeper understanding of language.
The more words that children know, the easier they are going to be able to communicate their wants, needs, desires, knowledge and their ideas. Strong language skills under pin so many elements of learning. It also helps regulate their emotions, because they’ve got those skills to be able to talk about how they’re feeling. Social skills are improved as they can communicate with their peers and make friends as well as improving their critical thinking skills and enhancing their creativity.
Lets get started TODAY:
It’s never too young to start reading to your baby. Check out these top tips for how to read to your little one so you can start reading straight away:
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Act out parts of the story to allow the words to come alive and jump out of the page.
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Read books that appeal to your child’s interests or a milestone they are working on to help make it relatable.
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Use books with flaps, feely sections, buttons or interactive elements to make books more engaging.
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Use funny voices to give your little one a chuckle!
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Make up stories so that you are in charge of the content and can tailor it to your child.
