One of the things we know about reading lots of stories with children is that it promotes literacy and BookBairn has certainly proved this...

Can You Say It Too?

Thursday, January 26, 2017 BookBairn 10 Comments

One of the things we know about reading lots of stories with children is that it promotes literacy and BookBairn has certainly proved this to be true. Now, I can't say for certain that all the stories have turned her into a little chatterbox, but I can certainly say that she has learned plenty of words from her books.

Daddy and I love books that get our little miss chatting. We love books that are simple enough that she can join in with the story, but also complex enough to add a little to her vocabulary. The 'Can You Say It Too?' series by Sebastien Braun is a favourite in our house. With these books, BookBairn likes to join in with revealing the animals hidden under the flaps and making the noises. Sometimes she likes to be the storyteller and read the story to us, letting Daddy lift the flaps and make the noises. We now have several of these books but top up our collection from the library.


Each book follows the same simple pattern - an animal is hiding behind the flap and little readers must discover who. All the books are different themes - woodland, farm, night time animals, etc hence the desire to read the whole collection. The repetition of the story is great from reinforcing vocabulary - animal names, and sounds as well as positional language (in, under, behind). Each reveal also has an adjective to describe the animal which BookBairn is beginning to pick up - a particular favourite "chilly penguin".

The illustrations are bright and colourful and instantly appealing for little ones. The animals are easy to recognise and all look adorable and friendly. The scenes also provide discussion with other animals in the illustrations and changing weather patterns and details. Deceptively simple, they are simply very clever!

Having borrowed a bundle of these books from the library, BookBairn got to read some new versions of the story and after reading 'Moo! Moo!' and shouting "baaaaa" very loudly (in the top photograph) she declared "like it this book!" (Unfortunately I didn't capture it on camera - but she did say it, honest!)

So there you go, the little chatterbox likes it! If that doesn't recommend this series enough to you, I'm not sure what else will!

Love Mummy and BookBairn x






10 comments:

  1. Brilliant. Now Lottie can read to G'ma at bedtime

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    1. Absolutely! She's getting good at reading her stories! *As you will read in our upcoming blog post!

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  2. All the books may have contributed to BookBairn becoming a chatterbox but I think it's in her genes :-)
    I've watched the video of her reading this book a number of times now and think it's great the way she joins in. It must be a very well designed book. Good reading, BookBairn. Well done.

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    1. They are great! We have two of our own but the others are library copies - hopefully we can add to the collection for BookBump too! They are very cleverly designed for little ones!

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  3. Love the look of these, nice and bright as well as engaging :) thanks for sharing with #ReadWithMe

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    1. They are so bright and colourful! Little ones love them - I better get some back to the library soon - we are being book-hogs!

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  4. I miss both flap and pop up books now mine are older. It used to worry me when we went to parents' evenings how shocked teachers were that our children had a great vocabulary as if we were giving them lots of literacy lessons when actually we just talk a lot and surround them with books

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    1. Absolutely! We've already had this at BookBairn's nursery though I've made it clear that I'm not 'teaching' her at home. She gets a lot of input, yes, and we talk about numbers, colours, shapes when we see them but all our reading is child-led. It would be impossible to make a toddler sit for a story if they didn't really want to! But I wish it was more the norm to have houses full of children's books!

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  5. These look lovely, a good size for little hands too. #readwithme

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    1. Perfect for little hands! You are absolutely right! x

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