Taking time every day to read or engage in learning activities with children can significantly influence their development and enhance both their and the parent’s literacy skills. This past Family Literacy Day, we shared tips for introducing French through books. These tips are valuable not only for promoting reading on Family Literacy Day but also for daily use, accessible to anyone, regardless of their proficiency in French. Below, we present five tips, along with book recommendations, resources, and a fun activity!
1
Pick books that are fun!
Selecting entertaining books like “C’est moi qui décide” by Elise Gravel ensures plenty of laughter for both children and parents. Other excellent titles include “Une patate à vélo” by Elise Gravel, “Trop de carottes” by Katy Hudson, and “Les lions font-ils Meuh?” by Collectif. Interactive books, such as lift-the-flap books, offer a fun way to engage children in reading. For more book suggestions, check out our Instagram posts on La Bibliotheque de Mme Amy!
Introducing French with books is a rewarding and effective way to nurture language skills in children.
2
Choosing books with repetition of simple phrases
This will allow little ones to “read” the books on their own even before they can read themselves. Children can also “read” along with you when they can try and guess the ending word if the book has rhyming text. Books that contain repetitive and predictable text include: “Ours Brun, dis-moi” by Eric Carle, or “Pout-Pout le poisson” by Debra Diesen. A lot of “Pat le Chat” books have phrases that are repeated throughout the book along with an interactive component that most of the time will leave you singing along with “Pat the Chat”.
3
Don’t read the language yourself?
Pick simple books with regular font and you can use the Google translate app on your phone to translate and read aloud each page. You can also check out Mme Melissa’s story time on our 123 Petits Pas’ YouTube channel. There are also lots of French story times of classic children’s books found online- grab your copy and read along!
4
Does one parent not speak the language?
Include them in story time too so they can learn alongside your child. Learning with your child is a great way to bond and your child will love learning with you. Plus, children’s books give you a chance to build up and develop your French comprehension skills first with simple plot lines and a visual element to accompany the text.
4
Don’t have books in the language being learned?
Use books of another language and practice some vocabulary (example: colours, animals, counting, etc.). Just because a book isn’t in French doesn’t mean you can’t use it for practice!
A great activity to accompany story time is literacy baskets or story bags.
Literacy baskets make story time a little more playful and interactive, and are a fantastic resource to further develop their vocabulary and understanding of the French language alongside their favourite books. Literacy baskets include your book along with a small collection of props to help you give the story life. It’s a hands-on learning opportunity for all children no matter their age! Great examples of what to include in your basket are: soft toys, puppets, farm and zoo animals, play food, textured materials and more
We hope these tips will get you started on your French literacy journey. We encourage you to try even just one of these tips today!