Discussing Literature with Kids
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Talking about literature with kids:
Builds observational skills
Increases Comprehension
Develops Critical Thinking Skills
Inspires Creativity
Develops Analytical Skills
Develops Empathy
And Supports their understanding of important concepts such as
Cause and Effect
Sequencing
Problem and Solution
Literary Littles
These Reading Guides are designed to walk you through the essential topics and questions that literature professors use to talk with their students about literature. We want to give you the tools to develop your child’s Critical Thinking Skills, Analytical Skills, and Creativity.
The Reading Guides will walk you through the program content. The Activities provide support as you develop your child’s skills, and the Read Along Blog offers you a sneak peak into our family conversations about the books we are reading.
Literary Littles
Our Reading Guides will take you through these topics:
Main Characters
Problems and Solutions
Story Structure
Conflicts and Secondary Characters
Settings
Poetic Devices
Pictures and Art
It’s a Chat, not a Pop Quiz
Since the premise of this approach to teaching literature is discussion based, let’s talk for a minute about HOW to ask questions to kids.
Kids don’t like to be quizzed. My son, like many kids, is great at saying “I don’t know” before he has even thought about it. Many kids use an automatic reply to get out of the situation or avoid answering if they feel put on the spot.
Let’s consider for a minute how adults analyze and learn literature. Usually a professor, or book-club leader will ASK a lot of questions. It’s the ASKING that is important, not so much the answering. When an answer is proposed, we don’t worry about whether it is the right answer or the wrong answer; we are only concerned about whether it can be proven from the text. A student of literature can give any answer she likes and be taken seriously if she can show a place in the book that supports that answer.
This is not to say that there are not right answers or that everything is relative. That’s not so. The idea, rather, is that developing ideas and offering evidence to support them is the basis for scholarship. This is called Analysis.
When kids have opportunities to say “maybe x is true,” and “here’s why I think that,” they are analyzing a text. They are developing critical thinking skills and rhetorical skills that will benefit them for their entire lives.
Tips for Analytical Conversations
Ask Away! But keep the tone light. You are having a conversation, not issuing a pop quiz.
If your child doesn’t want to answer, share what you think an answer might be. Conversations can go both ways. Use phrases like “I wonder if . . .” and “I kind of think . . . what do you think?”
Model how to support your answers from examples in the text. Use phrases like “I think X is the main character because I see her on all the pages!” Or “I think X feels sad, because his eyes are looking down and his mouth looks like a frown.” Kids learn by example. Demonstrate scholarship and analysis for them.
When your child does answer, don’t jump to praise or say it is necessarily wrong. We want our kids to feel free to try out ideas without evaluation. Ask them follow up questions like “oh, really? Why’s that? Can you find that place?”
Accept their answer and proceed casually: “Well let’s keep reading a see if we can find more clues!” Or “Let’s go back to that page and check it out!”
Sometimes the answer will be blatantly wrong. I like to correct this with a light, humorous tone: “You think the shoe is the main character?” My son laughs hysterically to hear me say it, and then we move on. I may give him the main character or not, depending on whether I think he really does know it, or whether he is ready to be done with this conversation for now.
Fun Tip!
These strategies for talking about books apply to all well-crafted narratives.
So, you can use them to talk about films and TV shows as well.
Helping our children to think critically in a variety of contexts will help build good habits.
Crafting Cozy Conversations
First, read the book to enjoy it. Read all the way through without pausing too much for lots of questions. Let your child become immersed. The author has crafted an experience and a journey in this book. Take that journey.
Once you have read the book, you can begin to reflect and ask some questions. Begin by talking about the main characters. Check out the Essential Questions for talking about main characters.
Flip back through the book again. Look at the pictures as you think about the characters. This is an important step for lengthening your child’s attention span, and for laying the foundation for supporting answers from the text.
At this point, your child may pull another book from the shelf. Great, read this now. Or go make dinner. Either way. But when it is time to read a new book, ask the same main character questions again. Let your child get used to the questions and comfortable with the process.