From Bedtime Story to Daytime Play
A great way to help your child’s reading comprehension and cognitive development is to adapt bedtime stories into daytime play routines. Creating an imaginary game which follows the plot of a familiar book allows your child a chance to deepen their understanding of a story and practice retelling stories in organized and meaningful ways.
Storytelling is a crucial element for children at every phase of their development and the foundations of narrative structure (setting, characters, problem, solution etc.) are laid early on. Pretend play in the preschool years turns into sharing stories of a school day in first grade, which evolves to essay writing in high school. Stories are a common thread throughout our lives and become the basis of how we interact, connect and find success in adulthood.
Here is how you can create a “book-to-play” bridge for your child and reinforce this crucial skill:
Choose a book with a simple plot line and one-two characters. For toddlers and preschoolers a book like The Very Hungry Caterpillar is a good example. For kindergartners and slightly older kids, books like Where the Wild Things Are, or If You Give a Mouse a Cookie are nice choices. Your book can also simply be one that your child loves and is familiar with!
After reading, tell your child that tomorrow we can be the characters in the book. Talk about ways that you can create the setting (e.g., “Let’s turn the living room into a wild forest with pillows and blankets!) and who will be which character (e.g., Mommy/daddy/brother is a wild thing and you’re the little boy).
Encourage your child to set up the scene for your story and remind them of the sequence of events in the book. Talk about what happened first, next and last. This can be highly simplified or increasingly detailed depending on your child’s understanding and attention levels.
Help your child gather things around the house that can represent key elements of the book (e.g., a box is a boat, blocks are different foods). The more abstract the connection, the more your child is working their imagination muscles!
Act out and play the story with your child. It does not have to be perfect but help your child incorporate the story elements with a degree of cohesion.
Encourage your child to play out the story on their own or add new details and characters while you take a much needed break!
A great way to extend these games is to incorporate arts and crafts with older children. They can make pieces of a story “set”, signs or character name tags.
Let us know how it goes and your favorite books to try this with!
Have fun!