3 Reasons Why Picture Books Are More Than Just Words and Pictures

Picture Books depart magic and wisdom to children all over the world every day, but they are so much more than a literacy tool. They are a gift to all of us; those who read them as well as those who write them.

1. When you read a picture book, you are seen.

Reading a book is sharing a story with a stranger. You might be in the arms of someone you love, but from another town or even another country, a storyteller is opening up your eyes and in turn, looking to you for your response. It happens without fanfare. It sees past the face you put on over your real one. There might me hints at secrets that you hide but understand. There might be a look in the characters eyes that mirrors your own. It could be something as simple as a truth you had always considered but never been brave enough to say out loud.

This storyteller sees you. There is somebody out there who gets it—it being you.

2. When you read a picture book, you learn.

The degree to which readers feel comfortable expressing their views is never more evident than when reading a picture book. Children are able not only to put their ideas out for public inspection on the cognitive worktable, but they also respond to and challenge their peers ideas. These interactions with one another suggest a high level of cognitive engagement in that children are listening to and responding to not only the story, but to another and making thoughtful contributions. Additionally, the evidence suggests that the comprehension process stimulated by predicting, relating and questioning that occurs provides guidelines about how to talk about issues children feel strongly about and what to say in order to participate and share their own views.

3.When you read a picture book, you are loved.

As a picture book author, this innate love seems to be a given for me, but it is overlooked by so many readers. It is no just the words or pictures we are sharing, it is the hours of creative angst, self doubt, compromise and negotiation. It is the tears between the pages, the laughter trapped between the blank spaces and the overwhelming need to share and share again with perfect strangers those parts of us that sometimes we don't let even those you know us best see.  A picture book is love in one of it's more basic forms. It is a gift we give freely and with the hopes that the reader will feel the love we poured into it just for them.

If you would like to share what gift picture books have given you and your family, please feel free to comment or contact me, I would love to hear your stories.

www.michelleworthington.com

Engaging Children Through Reading to be Critical Thinkers

Engagement through reading occurs when caregivers can help children by using interpretive tools to select, connect and organise information int he text to construct real meaningful interpretations of their own lives. The context of reading and the culture of literacy on a family and social level can also influence engagement. Reading with your child, not to your child, is important on a cognitive, metacognitive and motivational level. Children who have been engaged in reading from a young age do better academically and are more attentive students. During organic engagement, attention and mental processes are focused on the book and the learner is completely absorbed in the task of reading and in a state of flow. Although a child may be looking directly at the pages in a book and may appear to be engaged, they may only be going through the motions. Engaging your child during reading means sustained and personal commitment to create understanding.

 

Children are more likely to be engaged in reading when they believe they are capable of understanding, when it is interesting and when they feel it is important to them. This is why, as I have mentioned before in my previous blogs, that engaging children with reading books must come after they have a firm grasp of the relevance of words and communication in their day to day lives. This will help them to self regulate their attention and effort, relate new information to existing knowledge and monitor their own comprehension, making them more likely to have the physical and mental ability to hold their attention long enough to be successful readers.  It also makes it easier for them to distinguish between relevant and irrelevant information, link familiar knowledge to incoming information and organise sequences from the story, making them critical and creative thinkers.

 

In order for engagement in reading to occur, caregivers must provide instructional conditions that support it. A family culture that provides for child interaction and caregiver modelling of cognitive processes promotes the notion of reading as a transactional process where meaning occurs as the child’s expectations and experiences are in transaction and content of the text. Reading should be viewed as an interpretive process rather than as an exercise in listening and sitting still. Children should be encouraged to use strategic comprehension processes such as predicting, relating to prior knowledge and asking questions about the text in a reader-response collaborative discussion.

 

Too often, children’s experience of human interaction emerges as an unpredictable negotiation between being an individual and being asked to fit in with the expectations of others. They are asked to be passive participants in their learning. To engage children in reading, a more active stance is required. Children should be encouraged to use their own individual interactions with the text as they attempt to make sense of it so they can craft their own interpretations. As caregivers model interpretive tools, children become accustomed to seeing them used to derive a meaning from the text and develops an inherent reflexivity in its use as a tool to nurture engagement.

If you have any other ideas on why you agree that reading is an integral part of developing critical and creative thinkers, I would love you to contact me or comment below.

www.michelleworthington.com

Social Media Marketing and Purpose

This resonates with me on so many levels. First of all, as an author, you have to work. Nothing comes easy in this life and your passion must be proportionate to the size of your goal. I am not afraid of hard work. Secondly, keep working until you make it happen. It might be a long hard slog and there will be times you want to give up, but your tenacity must be stronger than your self-doubt.


Social media helps me reach people who I can't personally share my stories with. I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to reach people all over the world and inspire  kids of all abilities with my passion for books and the power of words. Social media is very much like all other types of technological advancements. Used the right way, it can bring great benefit and happiness to people but when taken advantage of for self serving purposes, it can be damaging on so many levels. Users need to take personal responsibility for how they use social media. Authors need to be aware of the ways to use it correctly to send their message globally.


Finally, to be known as an expert in your field. Some people may mistake my goal of brand recognition as vanity or showmanship but I can't help people if they don't know who I am. I can't share my story with them, inspire them or make a difference in this world. I can promise you that as long as I see a need, I will try and fill it. It is my duty, not only to myself, but to my children and my community to increase the greater good. This year, I will work hard so that when people hear my name, they will smile

Goal Setting for Authors

Where are you now in your career as an author?

 

Outline your top 3 strengths and areas to determine where you are now.   Top 3 strengths:   1.     2.     3.

Top 3 areas for development:   1.     2.     3.

 

 

 

What drives you? What are you passionate about? What gives you that ‘whoo hoo’ moment during the day?

On the flip side, what do you want to avoid? What’s the part about what you do that makes you not want to get out of bed in the morning?

 

Focus on ensuring:

• Development goals are aligned to organisational strategy and needs; whilst supporting career aspirations; that they are clear and measurable.
• Development goals should build skills that directly impact your capability to enable increased performance.
•  Learning experiences and formal learning activities (if appropriate) are explored to support the achievement of goals.
• A timetable for completion of activities and milestones during the development year

 

 

 

 

A good author development plan:

 

• Focuses on the development of a few skills, balances the need to develop both strengths and development areas that are tied to performance goals
• Has concrete action steps
• Sets gradual, realistic, and achievable success measures.

Join us for the Share your Story Goal Setting for Authors workshop in March 2017. Join our MeetUp Group to be notified of the next workshop in your area.

http://www.meetup.com/en-AU/Share-Your-Story-Australia/