Storytime: Young Children's Literary Understanding in the Classroom

Language and Literacy

by Lawrence R. Sipe, Celia Genishi (Series Editor), Donna E. Alvermann (Series Editor)

The author draws on his own extensive research in urban classrooms to present a comprehensive, grounded theoretical model of children’s understanding of picture storybooks―the first to focus specifically on young children. Advancing a much broader and deeper theory of literary understanding, the author suggests that children respond in five different ways during picture storybook readalouds; that these responses reveal that children are engaged in different types of literary meaning-making; and that these types of meaning-making are examples of five foundational aspects of literary understanding. Capturing the liveliness of children’s responses, this dynamic

Genres: Books About Books, Education, Grad School

320 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2007

Reviews

[Will]

(Gelezen voor master Jeugdliteratuur)

[Erin Reilly-Sanders · Rating 4 out of 5]

While the first section (basically a literature review) was unhappily overwhelming with the mention of a wide variety of sources and ideas, the rest of the book is surprisingly readable in clear, conversational language. Sipe's writing about his research and the patterns of response that he observes and categorizes is excellent and makes a compelling argument for teaching picturebooks through interactive interrogation that allows for a variety of these responses. My one quibble may be that a lot of his writing can be summed up with table 9.1 in a much more readable way than the text and I am frustrated in general with the lack of use of visual organization to help convey meaning in scholarly writing, since visuals are so rich in information.

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though the book is billed as one for both researchers and teachers, I would say that it certainly leans towards the academic versus the practitioner. Of particular interest is Sipes use of observational data from classrooms he visited. From a large body of information, he developed his theory about how children make meaning of texts as they read. His focus was on early elementary, and it was fun to see how these young students got so excited about the stories they encountered.

[Diane Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is more theoretical, clear, and rich than its title would suggest. It is artfully written and respectful of ALL children in ways that few researchers/writers are able to be. Even graduate students in literary theory would learn new concepts from this book because Sipe is working from interdisciplinary frames and edging outside the lines of narrow, disciplinary thought.

[Bill · Rating 5 out of 5]

A careful and thoughtful analysis of young children's early literary responses and development of responses. There are not many educational or LIS studies that have this combination of research question/issue significance combined with rigorous methodology. I use it in my doctoral course on children's/YA literature as a model of how to conduct scientific inquiry.