Introduction

 

Welcome...

Hi and welcome to my Literacy Blog. The purpose of this blog is to provide a collection of lessons tied to literacy through the use of children's picture books. These lessons form a themed unit that addresses the academic standards outlined for South Carolina's Department of Education. Although the lessons are all written to address kindergarten standards, the lessons can be easily adapted top meet the needs of various early childhood and elementary grade levels. The theme of my lessons is Seasonal Changes, which is one of South Carolina's science standards, but each lesson also integrates language arts with use of picture books and crosses into various other subjects across the curriculum. There are many advantages of using children's literature as tools to teach concepts across the curriculum, which include:

• The use of literature in teaching any subject can be a new, creative, and imaginative way to approach a topic. Approaching a topic from a different "angle" through literature, including picture books, can increase student motivation to learn (Lake, 1993, p. 18). A good story is a strong teaching tool, which gives a concrete, "contained" perspective for learning or thinking about a topic (Carr, 2001, p. 147).
• The simple, but imaginative worlds within picture books, and all literature, can provide students with an excellent and motivating introduction to complex curriculum topics. It is a great way to introduce a topic, especially to struggling learners, in that it allows you to work from concrete, simplified examples, before moving onto more abstract and complex examples (Carr, 2001, p. 148).
• In a good picture book, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts: the pictures do more than reflect the text, but serve to move the story forward in a way that the text can not do alone. The interplay of text and picture in a good picture book engage the reader on a deeper level (Huck, 1997, p. 199).
• The use of literature to teach curricular concepts helps relate the concept being taught to real-life situations, bringing the concept into the child's world (Whitin, 1992, p. xii).
• Most teachers are frustrated by the lack of time to cover all the curriculum topics. Integrating curriculum topics can save more time than trying to teach the concepts separately (Welchman-Tischler, 1992, p. 1).
• Last, it can make a topic that the students are not very engaged in much more fun and can motivate.