**Disclaimer: this post contains affiliate links to books I love to read to my son and students.**

Story time is a very important routine that all elementary school students need. The more a child is read to, the better reader they will become. However, though merely reading a story is extremely beneficial, there are ways to make sure that your child begins to absorb the necessary vocabulary to discuss and analyze literature that they will need in school (beginning as early as pre-k!).

You may be thinking, “I never really considered The Very Hungry Caterpillar or Where’s Spot? as fodder for literary dialogue.” Well here are a few different ways to make such elementary classics into just that!

Talk about the front cover, title, author, and illustrator every time you read.

Ever skipped the front cover of a book your child just handed you and begun reading? I most certainly have, but it pays to spend a few moments looking over the front cover. Read the title and refer to it as the title. Explain to children that the title is the name of the book. Move to the author, defining that very important person has the one who wrote the words. Similarly, read the illustrator’s name, state that this person drew (or took, painted, colored) the pictures. All this will give students a leg up when they go to school and are asked about these concepts about print (or parts of the book).

Ask students to predict what will happen in the story.

Explain to students that a prediction is what they think will happen in the story. Tell them also that a prediction can’t be just anything, they have to have a reason why they think something will happen. You will have to model this or show kids how. A great place to look for these reasons (or evidence, another great word to know) is in the title and the illustration on the front cover. You can think aloud while looking at a book like Where’s Spot? You might say that, because of the title, you predict someone will be looking for Spot. You could add, looking at the illustration on the front cover, that you predict that someone looking for Spot is his mother. Give your child the sentence frame “I predict that ___________.” Students would fill in that blank with their ideas. Once your child gets really good at telling you their predictions, add “because ___________” to the end of sentence frame.

Ask your child who the characters are in the story.

Students will need to know this vocabulary. You may think that this practice is just good for younger children, but every student will need to practice identifying characters throughout their education. To add complexity to this activity, you could ask students who their favorite character is and why. You can also ask students who the main character is. Define the main character as the person the story is mostly about or that the story follows most. For instance you could make a case that Sally in Where’s spot? is the main character because that is who appears most in the story, even if she is looking for Spot. If a child says that Spot is the main character ask for reasons why. Then, you could ask who the secondary characters are. Explain that these characters are in the story but are not the main characters. In Where’s Spot? those characters might be the penguins, the alligator, or the hippo.

Ask students to give you a summary of the story.

This may not mean asking your child for a summary right after reading, but maybe the next day while driving to school or eating dinner. Explain to students that a summary is what happened in the story. Once your child gets good at summarizing the story, ask him or her to pick out the main, or most important events, in the story. For older students, ask them to summarize the previous chapters in a chapter book you might be reading before continuing on.

 Ask how and why questions. These types of questions are the real meat and potatoes of literary discussion. These are the questions that make students think and you should always asks for reasons (or evidence) directly from the book to support what they say. An example of this occurs in The Little Red Hen. You might ask, “why does the little red hen decide not to share with the other animals?” A child might respond, “because the animals didn’t help the little red hen make the bread.” A how question might be, “how does the little red hen feel when the animals say they won’t help her?” An answer might be, “she feels angry because at the end she doesn’t share with the other animals.” Younger students might draw from their own experiences when answering these questions, but try to also look back in the book for clues that back up their responses. How and why questions are those that demand answers not plainly written out in the book and they constitute a higher level of thinking that kids need to grow. These questions will also help greatly with your child’s comprehension or ability to understand what they read.

How to use these pointers.

2 through 5 will help motivate children to pay closer attention to the books you (and later they) read, but they are not meant to be used together every single time you open a book with your child (except for number 1). Try to integrate these pointers into your routine as casually as possible and in as fun a way as can be done. For instance, make predictions into a game that you play against your child. Each of you can make a prediction and see which is right. Create a point system where every time your child answers a question or gives you a summary of a story, they earn toward some sort of prize (which can be as simple as spending extra time at the park or choosing a weeknight meal they can help you cook.) However, without doubt, learning terms like title and prediction early on will help students be better analyzers of literature.