Dear friends,
In many of our subcultures in the United States, we parents regularly read bedtime stories to our children. This cozy “Lap Experience” helps children be ready to learn to read.
The Aruamu children with whom we work in Papua New Guinea do not grow up with this “Lap Experience.” They have a very pre-literate background. They do not know what reading is, or how to hold a book, or that squiggles on a page would mean something. They do not know that you can get meaning from the printed page, or that reading is an enjoyable thing. They have to learn these things in order to be ready to read. Big Books are very effective tools to help them do that.
Big Books are large books (usually A3 size) with print and pictures big enough for the whole class to see. The teacher and the children share the enjoyable experience of reading stories together. In the Big Book approach the teacher first reads the story aloud, tracking the words with his finger. Then the students “read” with him, first in unison, and later individually. After that the teacher and the children play games with different pieces of the story to help the children focus on phrases and words, and children begin to be able to identify sight words.
As we use this Big Book approach, Aruamu children can learn the important reading readiness skills that they need. They learn how to hold a book, that reading is from right to left, that reading is fun, that reading is for meaning, and they begin to learn to predict their way through a text – which is the mark of a good reader. Because the Big Book approach can give a whole classroom of children a similar “Lap Experience” to what children in the West gain when their mothers read bedtime stories to them night after night, some reading theory researchers have called this extremely effective way of teaching reading the “Lap Technique.”
In the last several months, the Aruamu team has drafted and edited over 100 different Big Book titles on a variety of topics appealing to Aruamu children – from their own cultural folktales, to Aruamu customs, to every-day stories, to helpful topics like nutrition, or PNG leaders, or how to handle a snake bite. The books are planned around the theme clusters which the PNG Education Department recommends to be used with Elementary First Grade level children. By providing Big Books on a variety of topics we can help Aruamu children learn to read, help the Aruamu people preserve their language, and equip the next generation of Aruamus to be able to read God’s Word!
Thank you so much for partnering with us in bring God’s Word to people.
Blessings to you,
Marsha Miles
(for Nathan, as well)
Giving Opportunity! To make a special gift to help fund the Big Book printing need for Aruamu children, you can click on this link: http://pioneerbible.org/give Then click to the credit card giving page; in the drop down menu click “Projects”, and then “Aruamu Literacy”. Alternatively a check can be sent to the address below. Thank you so much for helping!
