Of reading stories to children

I went to a daycare center when I was a child, and I have no memory of the teacher reading stories to us. It was a time when preschool education was not a requirement before going to elementary classes. There weren't a lot of daycare services that time as much as I could recall, unlike today, daycare services and preschools are everywhere.

I remember that we had a lot of math worksheets and that I really enjoyed counting activities. I think I learned to read when I was in first grade. Though there were other children to play with in the school, it was not so fun at all. I recall that other parents would threat the kids to stop crying or else the teacher would do something bad to them. How would kids feel safe in such an environment?

Fast forward to university life and I was taking my degree, I enjoyed my practicum playing with and teaching the kids. I learned a lot from my cooperating teachers. We planned creative activities that would focus on the children's skills and interest. Truly, the children learn best when they enjoy what they are doing. From that moment on, I realized that I love teaching and being part of someone's childhood. I think it is overwhelming when people recall their awesome childhood and you were a part of it. It's enough reason to keep you going.

When I started teaching preschool classes, I make sure that children will feel safe and loved in the class. I try as much not to use threatening to manage the kids, though it's so tempting. Since I love reading books and stories, I also want the children to learn to love listening to stories and reading story books - even the boring ones. There is no boring book for teachers who can animate well, you can improvise the story through the pictures if you like. Once you show the children that you are not so interested, they won't be interested too.

There were times when I almost finished reading to class all the books that are provided by the school. I went to the bookstore and bought books that I could buy with my own money so that I could read new stories in class. I do not want to see the children get frustrated when there are no new books to read. Kids wanting to know more stories just show that they already loved the idea of reading and listening to stories. And I think it's great! Adarna House and Lampara Books are some of the publishing houses in the Philippines that make great books for children, I usually check them whenever I go to the bookstore. You can visit their website if you like.

I love children's storybooks since they are usually short and comes with illustrations to help the kids imagine, and of course, for those who can not read all the words yet. I think I have a collection of at least 30 storybooks and I plan to collect more because I believe that they will all be useful, if not in my own learning center in the future, at least in preschool classes that I'll be teaching. I also dream of making at least one storybook; I still hold on to that dream and it is yet to happen.

In the meantime, I'll enjoy reading stories to the kids in my class and hope that they will also love reading! Their favorite books as of now were The Gruffalo and Three Billy Goats Gruff. They loved them so much that we even gave birthdays to the Gruffalo and the Troll. Ha ha! That would be all for now, have fun reading! :)

These are some of the books in our Quiet Area