Websites for Literacy - The Hanen Book Nook
Written by: Brianna Guild, MHSc SLP(C)
Date: October 6, 2023
The Hanen Book Nook is a page on The Hanen Centre website that includes tons of practical information about emergent literacy. It is a helpful resource for Speech-Language Pathologists, caregivers, teachers, early childhood educators, and other educators. If you ever read with preschool and/or school-age children, I highly recommend you check out The Hanen Book Nook to improve your book reading routines!
Also, did you know that October is dyslexia awareness month? It’s perfect time to check out The Hanen Book Nook and educate yourself more about emergent literacy skills!
1. Emergent Literacy Skills
- Emergent literacy skills refer to skills all children need to know before they can learn to be successful readers and writers. These skills include: print knowledge, alphabet knowledge, phonological awareness, vocabulary, story structure, and inferential language.
2. Tips for Facilitating Emergent Literacy Skills
- The Hanen Book Nook offers caregivers and educators strategies to facilitate emergent literacy skills while reading with children, including dialogic reading tips to make book reading more interactive.
- There is a plan provided for each book that includes reasons why that book is optimal for targeting specific literacy skills, how to target these skills during first and repeated readings, and any additional information that might be useful to the reader. I especially like that the plans include examples of what that adult can say during book reading, such as thinking-out-loud comments and questions to ask that build understanding.
3. Monthly Topics and Featured Books
- The Hanen Book Nook highlights a range of books appropriate for preschool to school-age children and offers concrete examples of how to use each book to support specific emergent literacy skills.
- There is a new topic and book featured each month. For example, the topic for September 2023 was making predictions while reading Let’s Go for a Drive by Mo Willems. Check it out here.
- Topics include: turning book reading into a conversation, building print knowledge, building sound awareness, building vocabulary, introducing rare vocabulary, building story comprehension, predicting, problem-solving, relating to children’s experience, and more!
4. Library of Past Topics and Books
- There have been many books featured, so there is now an extensive library of past topics and book for you to browse! For example, if you want to work on building vocabulary, search for this topic to find all the corresponding books with reading plans centered around building vocabulary.
5. Reading Plans
- Speech-Language Pathologists, early childhood educators and teachers can use The Book Nook to help plan their lessons and read-alouds. Then, provide the PDF download of the book reading plan from The Book Nook and/or the website links (e.g., link to the book on The Book Nook and a YouTube read aloud) to caregivers to promote continued practice and development of emergent literacy skills at home.
6. The Book Nook on YouTube
- You can also check out Book Nook - The Hanen Centre on YouTube to watch videos on how to build emergent literacy skills using the books highlighted on their website. These videos are great to share with parents and other educators.
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If you're looking for more early literacy resources, check these out:
