Hi, everyone! I’m James, the Reading and Writing lead here at Little Plaza. I won’t go on too much about myself here—you can find more about me on Little Plaza’s website—but suffice it to say that I love reading, writing, and talking about stories, and I’m keen to help kids build their confidence and skills in these areas.
To that end, I host some of Little Plaza’s Show & Tell sessions, and the Reading and Writing Clubs. Thinking critically and clearly conveying your thoughts to others in a variety of forms are key skills we use in our daily lives. These can be tricky skills to master, even for adults. The sessions I run aim to give kids a head-start on developing these crucial skills through getting them thinking about the things they read and see, and get them to talk about it.
Take our Show and Tell sessions, for instance. Kids will bring an object in from home to talk about, such as a favourite toy. I’ll first present an object that I’ve brought and give the kids a little presentation on it, then I’ll encourage them to mimic me and present their object. I’ll help them, through probing questions, to talk about what they like about their object, why they brought it, and anything else the kids want to talk about. This can be a bit intimidating for kids at first, but with encouragement these sessions help them build their confidence in conveying their thoughts and opinions through speech clearly and effectively, and in a warm and friendly environment.
In Reading Club, we aim to do something similar. We’ve created our own Reading Booklets which have several different book review templates inside: one template focuses on getting kids to summarise the story they’ve read; another on discussing the story’s characters; a third on assessing the storyline; and a final template looking at the world the story is set in. Kids can use the Reading Booklet at home and with parents to give more structure to their reading and to encourage them to ask questions about the stories they look at—for example, who are their favourite and least favourite characters? Why? What do they like about the story’s setting? What do they think the story’s message is? There’s also a section where they can draw a picture about what they’ve read! Then, during our session, I encourage the kids to present their book review. The aim, overall, is to encourage kids to think more carefully about what they are reading and to form their own opinions on it. And, importantly, to convey their thoughts in a variety of ways—through writing, drawing, and verbal communication.
As you can read about elsewhere on our blog, different parts of our brains do different things—the left side is associated with language, analytical and logical thinking, and the right side is associated with spatial awareness, emotional processing, and creative thinking. At Little Plaza, we aim to create an environment and host a variety of activities which help develop all parts of kids’ brains—to give them a head start in this crazy world of ours! Our Show & Tell sessions and Reading Club sessions are two key ways in which we do this, so come and give it a try.
Comments