G r ad e
A Big ENGLISH
Book of
little stories
Book 1
How to use this Big Book:
As a teacher, you will need to plan and prepare for doing a shared reading activity with your
class. Usually when doing shared reading, the teacher works with the whole class, however,
The stories if your class is too large, it will be best to work with a group or part of the class. Care must be
taken to ensure that learners are able to sit around and see the Big Book so that they can read
in this book: the text.
In the Big Book shared reading session the child learns how to handle a book, hold the book the
right-way up, turn pages correctly. It develops basic concepts of a book – the cover, front, back
and title. It also models how the reading process takes place and is important for developing
learners’ listening, speaking, reading, thinking, reasoning and writing skills as required by the
CAPS:
• Develop listening and speaking skills.
• Develop emergent reading skills.
• Answer questions about the story.
• Participate in discussions, taking turns to speak.
1 I can read • Draw, act out or role play a story.
• Use pictures to predict what the story is about.
1 • Use shared reading as the basis for shared writing.
Getting ready for a Big Book reading session
• Ensure that all the learners can see the book. If your class is large,
rather work with a smaller group.
• You will find it useful to make a book stand so that you do not have to hold the book while
reading. (See the instructions to make a book stand on the back cover.)
• Use a ruler or a pointer to point to track words as you read.
2 Safety first • If you want to highlight individual words, you can paste sticky notes around the word to
single it out or you can make a ‘magic window’. Use a rectangular piece of paper with a
smaller rectangle cut out in the middle and place rectangle over the text so that only one
7 word is visible.
The first session of shared reading
The first session focuses on the enjoyment and first ‘look’ at the text, with the learners giving a
personal response to the text.
• Page through the story they will read. Talk about the illustrations.
• Ask learners to predict the story based on the title and the pictures.
• Introduce new or difficult words prior to the learners reading the story.
• Make word cards to introduce new vocabulary.
3 Fun in class
• Read the story, using expression and varying your voice, speed and tone. Use gestures
and facial expressions.
• Track the print as you read by pointing to words with a stick or a ruler so that learners see
10 what you are reading and they associate a sound with the symbols on the page. This will
also help them to see the process of reading from left to right and from top to bottom.
• Use this as an opportunity to introduce ‘book language’ such as: words, sentence, page,
author, title, etc.
• Let learners participate in the story by joining in on a recurring phase (e.g. “Run, run, run
as fast as you can, you can’t catch me – I’m the gingerbread man!”).
• The same story should be read two to three times to give learners the opportunity to
chorus language chunks, to role-play activities or to retell parts of the story in their own
words.
Starting The second shared reading session
4
school • In the second session the same text is used and the focus shifts to more involvement in
15 the reading with the teacher using the discussions that take place to develop vocabulary
comprehension, decoding skills and text structures (grammar, punctuation etc).
• It is up to you, the teacher, to draw attention to the learning focus which deals some
of the following: the concepts of print, text features, phonics, language patterns, word
identification strategies and comprehension at a range of levels (literal, reorganisation,
inferential, evaluation and appreciation questions).
The third shared reading session
• In the third shared reading session, learners should read the text themselves and engage
in oral, practical and written activities based on the text.
5 Bongi’s • Where possible, the shared reading text should inform the shared writing where the
family and
teacher models how to write a text and the learners engage in the composition of the text
while you take on the role of facilitator and scribe. This modelling of the writing process
friends 20 helps to prepare learners for their own writing tasks.
ii
1 I can read
My hat.
My dog.
My cat.
1
My cup.
My cap.
My bag.
2
My mum.
My dad.
3
My frog.
My pig.
4
My book.
My pen.
5
2
My top.
I jog.
Oh no!
The log!
6
2 Safety first
Do not play with electricity.
Do not play with medicine.
7
Stay away from hot things.
Do not touch them.
Do not play with matches or lighters.
Do not play with fire.
8
Which things are hot?
Which are sometimes hot?
Which are not hot?
9
3 Fun in class
Jabu likes to draw.
Ann likes to paint.
10
Bongi likes to read.
Dan likes blocks.
11
Sam likes to
write.
Mary likes to cut.
12
Ken likes play dough.
Nomsa likes puzzles.
13
Billy likes everything!
14
4 Starting school
Jabu Ann Bongi
Dan Ken
I am Bongi.
This is Ann, Dan, Ken and Jabu.
This is Ben, the school dog.
Ben is a funny dog.
15
It is fun to play in the sun.
We like to run and hop.
16
We run and play in the sun.
We have fun in the sun.
Ben likes to run in the sun.
17
Bow, wow, wow.
We sing.
Ben is under the mat.
Ben has fun.
18
No Ben, don’t
run in the street!
After school we go home.
We look right and left and right again.
Then we cross. It is fun to go to school.
19
5 Bongi’s family and friends
I am Bongi. I am 7.
This is my sister, Gugu.
This is my friend, Ann.
20
This is my brother, Mandla.
This is my mother and father.
This is our dog, Jessie.
21
We like to play.
We like to read.
22
We help in the garden.
We play in the tree house.
Jessie likes to dig.
23
We are a big happy family.
This is my grandfather.
This is my grandmother.
This is my uncle.
This is my aunt.
24
Dan, Ken, Ann and Jabu are my
friends.
We like to play.
It is good to have friends.
It is fun to have a dog.
25
Welcome to the Big Book series. This Big Book forms
part of the wider Rainbow Series which includes
workbooks, an anthology, graded readers and posters.
We hope that you will find the variety of stories in- Make your own
cluded in the eight Big Books for this grade useful for
your teaching and that your learners will enjoy their Big Book stand
shared reading experience.
You will need:
The Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement
(CAPS) for the Foundation Phase highlights shared 1. Cardboard with the same
reading as one of the important components of the width as an open Big Book
reading strategy. Shared Reading usually takes place (594 mm) and three times
for two to four days a week with each child having the the length (1360 mm).
same text to read.
2. Masking tape.
Using a Big Book with enlarged print is an excellent
way of doing shared reading because the learners can 3. Two washingpegs to keep
see the words and pictures, and follow as you read in the cardboard in place.
a way that is similar to traditional family story telling.
It is important that they sit around the Big Book, so
that they can all see and read the text. The large print
of Big Books makes it possible to read aloud to sev- Fold the cardboard to make an
eral learners at once in a relaxed and non-threatening A-shape and clip the base and FO
LD
HE
atmosphere. the front together as shown below.
RE
(Use masking tape to join pieces
m
The Big Books in this series will introduce your learn-
of cardboard if you do not have
m
ers to a range of stories, poems, rhymes and plays as
420
well as information and graphical texts. a long enough piece.) FO
LD
HE
RE
It is your task, as teacher, to make the stories come
m
to life and to create an environment of fun and ex-
m
420
citement. Big Book reading enables you to model the FO
LD
experience of reading in a way that is enjoyable for HE
RE
both you and your learners. We hope that this book
will help you to do just that.
mm
594
420
mm
No Ben, don’t
t!
run in the stree
• Use a sheet of clear plastic as an overlay for
your Big Book. It will be useful for you and
Some the learners to write on the plastic. Wow, wow, wow. head
other ideas • Write on the overlay with a water-based toes After school we
ht an
go home.
d left and right
again.
We look rig
for using a
when the
washable pen (white board markers). os s. W e stop
We sing. Then we cr school.
is fun to go to
Ben is under th
e mat. robot is red. It 5
Big Book • Use a clip or peg to attach the transparent Ben has fun.
overlay to the Big Book.
4
Farm animals
ISBN 978-1-4315-2793-9
THIS BOOK MAY NOT
BE SOLD.
Published by the Department of Basic Education
222 Struben Street, Pretoria
South Africa
© Department of Basic Education
First edition 2016
The Department of Basic Education has made every effort to trace copyright
holders but if any have been inadvertently overlooked, the Department will be
pleased to make the necessary arrangements at the first opportunity.
The Big Books in this series are available in all languages. They were developed
by a team of UNISA Language and Education experts as part of their Community
Engagement contribution to South Africa’s education sector.
Author: V McKay
