2.4.8: School Readiness Focus: Perpetual, Motor, and Physical Development and Social and Emotional Development

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Perceptual, Motor, and Physical Development

Interactive picturebooks create a fun experience and can also help children learn and practice school readiness in the domain of perceptual, motor, and physical development which includes coordination, fine and gross motor control, and following directions. Interactive picturebooks encourage movement with text that invites children to follow the movements of a character or to follow instructions that then appear to have an effect on the book’s action (Pyrek, 2014). For some recommended interactive books to get you started, check out:

“Participation Palooza: Creating a Festive Storytime Atmosphere with Interactive Books” by children’s librarian Jessica Pyrek - https://journals.ala.org/index.php/cal/article/view/32/7
“Get Busy! Fun with Interactive Books” by School Library Journal reviewer Joy Fleishhacker - https://www.slj.com/?detailStory=get-busy-fun-interactive-books
“Tell Stories Like a Rock Star–The BEST Interactive Picture Books” by children’s librarian and blogger Peter Blenski - https://legolibrarian.com/2018/03/09/tell-stories-like-a-rock-star-the-best-interactive-picture-books/

Social and Emotional Development

The International Literacy Association (2020) reports that many literacy educators believe it is their responsibility to assist children’s social and emotional learning along with literacy learning. Many studies have found that hearing children’s literature read aloud can assist children’s social and emotional development, especially when accompanied by discussions or enrichment activities, by giving children vocabulary to identify and describe emotions in themselves and others and by modeling emotional self-regulation, empathetic behavior, and other prosocial behaviors (Harper, 2016; Short, 2018; Thoren, 2016).

Children may more easily transfer social skills, such as problem solving, from a picturebook to the real world when the book has a realistic rather than fantastical context and realistic human characters rather than animals, monsters, or objects as characters (Strouse et al., 2018). Laurie J. Harper (2016) suggests these criteria for choosing picturebooks that promote social and emotional development:

Plot: contains realistic, believable, events that are relatable to children’s lived experiences across cultures
Characters: display a range of emotions consistent with story events
Illustrations: include facial features that match the emotions expressed in the text
Vocabulary: includes range of words to label and describe emotions
Visual style: uses elements such as color and perspective to evoke characters’ emotions and assist children in making connections between the text and themselves or the world.

One resource to consider is the Center on the Social and Emotional Foundations for Early Learning’s curated list of books related to topics in children’s social-emotional development (such as Being a Friend, Angry or Mad Feelings, and Good Behavior Expectations) available at: http://www.pyramidmodel.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/csefel_booklist.pdf. Another resource is recommended literature from Open Circle, creators of an evidence-based social and emotional learning curriculum, available at: https://www.open-circle.org/resources/childrens-literature.