Prelude to literacy: a preschool child's encounter with picture and story

Description

This is the first in-depth study of a preschool child’s interaction with picture and story books. Based on five years of intensive obser­vation of the authors’ daughter, Anna, the book provides detailed, verbatim records of Anna’s questions and comments as she lis­tened to books being read aloud. It is a fas­cinating scholarly contribution to those in­terested in language acquisition. The first part of the study presents Anna’s reactions to six books, ranging from Where the Wild Things Are at two years to The Story of Doctor Dolittle at four-and-a-half. The authors analyze what Anna said and did, drawing on contextual material to make it clear that ini­tially inexplicable or irrelevant remarks are not only logical but often indicative of un­derlying emotional dynamics as well. Part two describes Anna’s reaction to fic­tional experience in her own play and spon­taneous monologue, of which several exam­ples are transcribed and analyzed in full. The third section begins with two chap­ters devoted to the visual dimension of Anna’s book experience. In chapters dealing with humor, fantasy, plot, narrative, voice, identification, and emotion, the authors use their findings to shed new light on frequently asked but rarely answered questions: “What do children laugh at?” “Are some books too frightening for children?” “Is a happy ending vital in a story for young children?” “Can preschoolers understand the difference be­tween fantasy and reality?”