I often see a mother asking, "How to choose a picture book for my child?" "How to choose the right book for your child?" Not long ago, Ma Ting completed a 56-day reading guidance course for children, which included the question of how to choose books for children. Therefore, I specially arranged it, hoping to help all mothers.

Professor Zhu Ziqiang, consultant of Feng Zikai's Children's Picture Book Award, director of the Institute of Children's Literature and professor of China Ocean University, has studied the "graded" reading of children's literature for many years, and summarized and put forward five principles of graded reading that reflect the order, regularity and structure of language and style, namely:

1, from spoken to written language

2. From Poetry to Prose

3. From story to plot ...

4. From image to intention

5. Narrative first, then write the scenery, express feelings and discuss.

The principle of "listening, speaking, reading and writing" is actually a step-by-step process, so is any language learning. Choosing books for children should also follow the above principles.

Appropriate books can stimulate children's interest in reading and are the basis for children to learn to read.

For children, they learn to speak before they learn to read. This is because spoken English is more musical, expressive and cadence, and it is easy for children to learn spoken English in spontaneous and unconscious activities. Written language needs careful thinking to master, which is why many children say "logically" and ask them to keep a diary or composition but mention that they don't know how to write it. Of course, this is beside the point.

According to the above principles, books suitable for young children include nursery rhymes, folk literature (life stories and fairy tales) and picture books.

Today we focus on picture books.

Picture book is a foreign word, which is a picture book in our vernacular. There are many pictures, bright colors and short and interesting contents.

Some high-quality picture books, even if there is no text, can tell good stories only with pictures, and also allow children to give full play to their imagination and fully enjoy reading.

When we choose picture books for our children, we should follow the following four criteria:

1. Choose books according to children's physiological age characteristics.

Newborns aged 0-6 months can show their children black and white cards, which are designed and developed according to the characteristics and principles of visual development of newborns. They can stimulate vision, help the development of eye rod cells, and enhance sensitivity to color, contour, size and shape.

After 6 months, the way the baby explored the world gradually changed from "mouth" to "hand". Although the baby can read by himself, his hands are still weak and his coordination ability is not fully developed. We can choose some small and medium-sized children's books for our baby, which are smooth, tear-resistant, pull-resistant and easy to turn, such as cloth books that can be torn, pulled and bitten at will.

About 9 months, the baby's thumb gradually stretches, and the fine motor ability of the hand has been greatly improved; By 1 1- 12 months, the baby's hand function has advanced by leaps and bounds, and it can be groped and tried with small hands. At this stage, some touch books, hole books, push-pull books and so on. You can prepare for your baby and let him explore as much as possible.

2. Choose books according to children's knowledge background.

Children under the age of three are often younger and have limited cognitive ability. They prefer simple and interesting stories and have higher requirements for color, preferably books with bright colors and many pictures. Words should be simpler, and there are many repetitive languages and dialogues.

In The World's Selected Picture Book: The Hungry Caterpillar (a three-dimensional cave book), a newborn caterpillar drags its hungry belly and crawls forward step by step, persistently looking for something to eat.

We can see that the author skillfully presents the process of caterpillar transforming into butterfly by using cave special effects, and introduces more than ten kinds of food and the names of Sunday to Monday with lovely collage pictures.

3. Choose books according to children's hobbies.

The personality differences between boys and girls also determine their differences in hobbies, and reading is obviously influenced by personality or hobbies.

So we should also take this into account when choosing books for our children.

4. You can choose books according to the time node.

Time nodes are mainly aimed at a certain kind of books with specific distinctive time characteristics, such as various holidays, various specific anniversaries and so on. It is best to follow the time node when choosing such books.

For example, during the Spring Festival, we can read Reunion, Welcome the Year of China and the Chinese Zodiac with our children, which will not only improve the situation, but also make our children's experience more profound.

Of course, in addition to the above four principles, we should also consider some characteristics of the book itself when choosing a picture book for our children. For example: paper safety, printing clarity, ink quality and so on. For younger children, reading safety is very important.