Big Books

Purpose of Big Books• Reading Big Books together is non-

threatening “social learning activity”.

• They show students how to read naturally, with understanding, for enjoyment.

• They are an enjoyable way of introducing beginning readers to the written form of their language.

• They can be read many times so children can develop the concept of ‘story’.

Characteristics of Big Books• They are BIG! Should be A-3 size or larger

• Pictures are big, easy to understand and are clearly related to the text (so students can “read” the pictures).

• Text is large & readable.

• Story type is familiar, acceptable & interesting to the learners.

• Language is natural & memorable with predictable text and lots of repetition.

Using Big Books• Read the story (can read many times)

• asks WHO, WHAT, WHEN, HOW,WHY questions AND… ask each other questions

• re-tell the story

• act out the story

• change the ending of the story

• change the characters in the story

Other activities with Big Books

• Oral cloze activities

• Matching word activity

• Matching sentence activity

• Make-a-sentence activity

• draw their own picture about the story and add their own “text”; share their story with others

Steps in Making a Big Book1) Write & edit the Big Book story

2) Have someone else check content, language, spelling and handwriting

3) Put text and pictures onto A-3 paper in pencil

4) Proofread one last time, make corrections

5) Go over text and pictures using a black marking pen. Leave space at the bottom of the page for page numbers

6) Make a small “Guide Book” or dummy to show you how the pages will be put together

7) When you are SURE that you have the pages correctly ordered, put double pages in order; tape the double pages together

8) Make the cover (picture, title)9) Tape the cover page onto the cardboard cover.

Tape around all the edges10) Fasten front and back covers together, using

masking tape and several layers of duct tape 11) Tape inside pages together12) Check the order of pages one last time. Then

sew the inside pages to the covers. 13) Tape over the string with final layer of duct tape.