Little Books

Little Books is a set of reproducible books designed for interactive book reading between parents and children or teachers and students. The books use thematic topics familiar to kindergarten students, are written with high-frequency words, use simple phrases and sentences, and have strong links between illustrations and text. Three variations were studied: using Little Books at home only (where school staff gave a new book to each child weekly to take home and read with parents), at school only (where teachers introduced a different book each week and devoted approximately 10-15 minutes daily to the materials for five days), or both at home and school (combining both approaches). Parents and teachers received training: parents watched a video demonstration and received guidelines for comfortable reading arrangements and discussion strategies; teachers attended a workshop learning a specific instructional procedure involving opening, modeling, tryouts, and closing, working with the whole class initially then smaller groups over subsequent days.