English 1 Module: Reflection on a Story Reading Experience

This assignment is a reflection on a story reading experience, focusing on the book "Squids Will Be Squids" by Jon Scieszka, read to a group of seven to eight-year-old children. The reflection details the classroom setup, including the arrangement of chairs and the distribution of the storybook to facilitate student engagement. It discusses the teacher's approach, including the use of questions and appropriate inflection to maintain student interest and encourage participation. The paper contrasts the reading experience with how it might be conducted with preschoolers and highlights the importance of creating a participatory environment. The reflection also explores the three basic skills needed for reading, the role of picture storybooks in improving reading comprehension, and effective methods for vocabulary development through interactive reading. It concludes by discussing strategies to support emergent writing, such as using word charts and encouraging students to write short sentences about the characters, emphasizing the importance of an engaging and emotionally rich story to promote reader engagement.

Running Head: ENGLISH 1
Reflection on story reading
Author's Name
Institutional Affiliation
introduction

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The story picked for reading is “Squids Will Be Squids” by Jon Scieszka (Scieszka,
1998). It is a collection of stories with morals and talks about different kind of people who could
be annoying, funny or bossy. The story was chosen because it has interesting and unusual
characters like a little green Grasshopper or a walrus with a phone or a spiteful blowfish. As
there are plenty of characters, the book would make for an interesting read.
The story was read to a group of seven to eight-year-old children. In order to support the
reading experience, the classroom was arranged so that the children can see the teacher and the
blackboard clearly. The chairs were brought closer to the teacher, and each student was given the
book. Children were excited to get the colorful storybook and paid attention when the story was
being read. They responded enthusiastically as they were asked brief questions on the characters
and what would happen. They were excited to see new characters and with interesting habits that
could relate to.
The story is discussed by introducing the title and the cover. Children were asked in-
between as to predict what the character would do or behave. Appropriate inflection and tone
were used to keep the children interested. The teacher kept some reserve time for reactions and
comments from the children. Questions that relate to students' similar experiences that relate to
the story were asked. Children would be motivated to tell the story in their won worlds. Children
need to be active participants in the storytelling session. How the teacher holds the book, as she
gently leads the children in the world of storytelling can get the best out of the experience. There
is a difference between telling and reading a story as asserted by Dowling (2018).
If the same story was read to a group of preschoolers, it would be done a bit differently.
For example, the children would not be handed over the book, but the storybook would remain
with the teacher. The children would sit closer to the teacher so that they can see the storybook.

EDUCATION 3
The walls of the classroom could be covered with the storybook characters. The idea is to make
the children familiar with the characters and what they would see in the storybook. The teacher
could draw a colorful character from the story on the backboard or use puppets to interact with
the children. She could ask the name of the different characters.
The three basic skills needed when learning to read include their knowledge of letters,
phonological awareness and their ability to listening comprehension. The three basic skills
needed when reading to learn is to develop the skills of listening and speaking. Children read to
learn the skills of communication and to write. As they are introduced to new people, characters,
ideas, they expand their vocabularies.
There can be specific experiences that could be done differently from what was done in
class and to expand the learning experience. For example, children could be asked to enact the
characters and show their behaviors. Next, children could be asked to draw the characters.
Thirdly, children could be asked to write short sentences on the characters.
Studies reflect those picture storybooks were always better to hold students' interest in
reading as well as improve their reading. The students' reading comprehension shows an
improvement in the utilization of picture storybooks (Roslina. 2017). Children need a widespread
network of knowledge regarding words in the pre-school years so that they can learn better. The
most effective means of vocabulary development is a session of interactive reading of storybooks
with children (Okyay, & Kandir, 2017).
In order to further build the story reading experience to support emergent writing, word
charts would be made and displayed in the class. They could be taught to use capital letters and
punctuation correctly as they write legibly in cursive. As long as a story is interesting and high in

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emotional content, the readers are likely to become more engaged with the story, and it doesn’t
matter if the story is read sentence-by-sentence or reading one page at a time (Chung-Fat-Yim,
Peterson & Mar, 2017).
Children would be asked questions on a character and then asked to look for the answers
from the book and write them down on their own. Children enjoy reading independently and
become better readers. Story reading can help develop wading listening and speaking skills
among children. However, certain aspects can promote the experience if the teacher is careful
about the setting, and keeps the children motivated. The whole experience should be a
participatory one through sounds, gestures, and expressions.
References

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Chung-Fat-Yim, A., Peterson, J. B., & Mar, R. A. (2017). Validating Self-Paced Sentence-by-
Sentence Reading: Story Comprehension, Recall, and Narrative Transportation. Reading
and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 30(4), 857–869.
Dowling, J. (2018). Medlicott, Mary: Storytelling and Story-Reading in Early Years. School
Librarian, (3), 195.
Okyay, O., & Kandir, A. (2017). Impact of the Interactive Story Reading Method on Receptive
and Expressive Language Vocabulary of Children. European Journal of Educational
Research, 6(3), 395–406.
Roslina. (2017). The Effect of Picture Story Books on Students’ Reading Comprehension.
Advances in Language and Literary Studies, 8(2), 213–221.
Scieszka, J. (1998). Squids Will Be Squids, penguinrandomhouse Retrieved from
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/286625/squids-will-be-squids-by-jon-
scieszka-illustrated-by-lane-smith/9780142500408/

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