The text on the back cover of a child's picture book is skilfully written by publishers to act as a mediator between the picture book and the adult buyer. It aims to attract the adult, who is likely to act as the mediator between the book and the very young child.
For a book to become a very young child's favourite, it needs to be presented in a way that they can relate to and find interesting. To mediate successfully, adults have to genuinely like the book. Even very young children can detect how adults feel about a book; enthusiasm, like negative feelings, is infectious.
Mediating or presenting a book depends on a combination of recognition of a child's developmental levels and an adult's personal skills.
Tuning in
A child's degree of understanding is always greater than his ability to communicate. The amount a child understands depends on the type of experiences he has had.
Although there is no spoken communication until about 12 months, from the first days there is communication through the eyes. Within weeks smiles and coos develop which turn into babbles accompanied by gestures around six months.
Reading stages
Some adults find it quite difficult to read books before there is any spoken response from a baby. Once the child begins to use words, the role of the adult becomes more that of a sharer. Once adults get some feedback from a child, they begin to mediate with more confidence.
Reading can once again become a one-sided activity when a child becomes a great chatterer and most of the input comes from them. The adult's role changes to that of listener, setting the scene for the child to take over, interjecting comments, while the adult reads the text and asks a few open-ended questions. Too many searching questions about how a child feels, however, can spoil the magic of a picture book.
Voice and reading styles The adult's voice, gesture and selected language shepherds a baby and young child through their first years of 'reading'. The use of the voice is most important in the pre-verbal stage when the child is first introduced to books and all language input depends on the adult.
To read a story well involves an adult putting on their own show, using facial expression, gesture and exaggerated voice, which helps a child to decode the secondhand experience of the story and then make sense of the text. In putting on their show adults need to:
* read at the child's own pace, letting them scan the page in their own time. When a child has finished they may turn their face to you as if to say 'Let's go on'
* point to important words and stress them
* fill out the story language with comments. The story text should not be altered as this confuses the child and makes picking up the text language difficult
* use different voices
* encourage joining in, finishing off phrases or making the noises of animals or transport. Before long, a child will know most of an easy text by heart.
A selection of books about animals
in development order from first books to more difficult
Peepo puppy! Amazing Baby Series Templar publishers
* Who will we find on the farm today? Ducklings, a piglet and a lamb and a baby.
Find Monkey!
By Debbie Mackinnon, Anthea Sieveking (Frances Lincoln)
* Meg goes on a journey seeking her cuddly monkey.
On the Go... Just like Me!
By Jess Stockham (Child's Play)
* Beetle is crawling, just like me. So are Bear, Duck and Kangaroo all moving, just like me.
In the Jungle By Mathew Price, illustrator Atsuko Morozumi (Mathew Price)
* The jungles hides a monkey, a crocodile, a parrot, a snake and a tiger.
Where are they?
On the Farm
By Benedict Guettier (Little Players Zero to Ten)
* An interactive board book with a cut- out hole to insert your face and become either a pig, a dog, a cockerel, a sheep , a cow or a cuddly kitten.
From Head to Toe
By Eric Carle (Puffin)
* Eleven animals make different actions which the child copies, saying 'I can do it'.
Whose tail?
By Sam Lloyd (Little Tiger Press)
* On each page an animal can see the tail of another animal. 'Whose tail is it?'
What shall we do with the Boo Hoo baby?
By Cressida Cowell, illustrator Ingrid Godon (Campbell)
* Join in with the noises of the animals who all tried to stop the baby crying.
The Very Lazy Ladybird
By Isobel Finn, illustrator Jack Tickle (Little Tiger Press)
* The ladybird does not know how to fly so when she wants a new place to sleep, she has to get a lift on a passing animal.
Bear on a Bike
By Stella Blackstone, illustrator Debbie Harter (Barefoot)
* Bear is followed by a small boy on his journey to different environments.
Rhyming refrain, 'Where are you going, bear? Please wait for me!' make it easy to join in the story.