School is Starting! 5 Back to School Book Recommendations from an SLP
Summer is coming to an end, and school will be starting soon! To prepare your child for the upcoming transition, try reading books about school. Reading back-to-school books gives you the opportunity to introduce (or review) the names of common school items and activities. Books are also a great way to explore emotions kids may feel before school. Learning to label others’ feelings can help children identify and cope with their own emotions as well. Here are five favorites that I love- I hope you enjoy them as well!
1. The Night Before Preschool by: Natasha Wing
· Synopsis:
A little boy is nervous on his first day of school but starts to enjoy himself with the help of kind friends.
· What I Love:
o Rhyming:
This book rhymes, which is great for young children who are still developing phonological awareness skills. It also provides the opportunity for auditory closure tasks- have your child fill in the rhyming word!
o Emotions:
This book explores Billy’s worries about school, but also depicts other children who are happy and comfortable at school. While it can be good for children to see that other children may be nervous, we don’t want to make children nervous if they are not feeling that way! Use this book to show how we can treat others who are nervous, so we can help them feel more comfortable.
o Point-of-View:
Instead of saying that Billy is nervous during the school day, the book focuses on his actions. This is a great opportunity for children to work on looking at a situation from another person’s perspective. Talk about how Billy is acting vs. how the other children are acting, and what this shows about their respective feelings. Learning to see things from another person’s point of view is important for both social-emotional development and pragmatic language development (e.g. (making appropriate comments in social settings requires an understanding of the other person’s point-of-view).
o Vocabulary:
This book introduces children to some common school items and activities, such as: alarm clock, hoodies, circle time, costume, crayons, snacks, playtime, tricycles, mats, naptimes, hallway.
2. The Pigeon Has To Go To School by Mo Willems
· Synopsis:
The pigeon is worried about going to school, but then realizes school is exactly where he wants to be…and then he gets to ride the bus to school too!
· What I Love:
o Higher-Level Thought Questions:
This book, like most of Mo Willems’ books, provides ample opportunity to focus on higher-level, open-ended thought questions. Examples: Why does the pigeon not want you to read the title? What happened before he says, “Well, I know almost everything?”.
o Print Saliency:
Print-salient text is text that commands the child’s attention, and it is important for helping developing children’s awareness of print. This book employs print-saliency by making words bigger and smaller depending on the emotion the pigeon feels. For example, “WHAT WILL HAPPEN AT SCHOOL?” is big and written in uppercase, while “I’m…scared” is written in small font on separate pages.
o Emotions:
At the beginning of the book, the pigeon admits he is “scared” and talks about all of his fears. However, by the end of the book, he is so excited that he says, “The Pigeon HAS to go to school!”. Talk about why he felt scared, how he addressed each fear, and why he feels differently at the end of the story.
3. Miss Bindergarten Gets Ready For Kindergarten by Joseph Slate
· Synopsis:
Miss Bindergarten and her students all get ready for the first day of school.
· What I Love:
o Rhyming Text:
The text is written with lots of rhymes, such as “Adam Krupp wakes up” and “Jessie Sike pedals her bike.” Rhyming is important for developing children’s phonological awareness skills.
o Alliteration:
Alliteration is used at the end of the book where it labels each animal with a name that starts with the same letter as the animal. For example: Patricia Pig, Noah Newt, Kiki Kangaroo. Alliteration is also important for helping children develop phonological awareness (i.e. initial sounds in words).
o Print-Salient Text:
The text has phrases that go in alphabetical order, and it emphasizes each letter by printing it larger and in color. This draws your child’s awareness to the text. For example, “Emily Moko cools her cocoa.”
o What to Expect:
The book depicts the teacher getting the classroom ready, which provides an opportunity to talk about what children will do in school. Some activities pictured include: reading books in the library, playing in the house center, playing with blocks, painting at the easel, eating snack, and having circle-time.
4. There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Books by Lucille Colandro
· Synopsis:
A silly old lady swallows common school supplies, and a backpack pops out of our mouth when the school bus arrives.
· What I Love:
o Vocabulary:
This book focuses on common school items, including: books, pen, pencil case, ruler, folder, chalk, bag, school bus, backpack.
o Verbal Reasoning:
Why did the old lady swallow each item? Having your child explain the relationship between each item and then item that precedes it helps develop their verbal reasoning skills.
o Repetitive Text:
Like all the books in this series, this book is very repetitive which makes it easier for children to try to retell the story on their own. The repetitive text is also beneficial as it provides multiple exposures to the same vocabulary targets.
o Auditory Closure:
Because the book is repetitive, it also provides opportunities for children to successfully complete auditory closure activities (i.e. fill in the last word in a sentence).
5. Pete The Cat: Rocking In My School Shoes by Eric Litwin
· Synopsis:
Pete goes to school and sings about his activities throughout the day.
· What I Love:
o Vocabulary:
This book includes lots of school vocabulary targets, including names of rooms at school (e.g. library, lunchroom, playground), common items (e.g. desk, book, table, seat, swings, slide), and verbs (e.g. reading, eating, playing, singing, painting, adding, writing).
o Repetitive Text:
Pete the Cat books are always repetitive, and this book doesn’t disappoint! The phrase repeated throughout this book is: “I’m verb+ing in my school shoes.” This is great for children who are learning different verbs, or who are learning to include the present progressive “ing” tense marker.
Another repeated phrase is: “Does Pete worry? Goodness no! He…sings his song.” This is a great way for your child to help participate in the reading, as s/he can fill in blank if you leave words out. (It is also a great way to talk about what you can do to calm down instead of worrying- sing a favorite song!).
o Riddles:
Solving riddles is a great for developing both language and critical thinking skills. In this book, there are clues given on one page about where Pete is going next (e.g. “come on Pete, down that hall to a room with books on every wall”), and your child can try to figure out where he is going before you turn the page.
What are some of your favorite back-to-school books? Share your suggestions in the comments below!
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