ABC, COUNTING AND CONCEPT BOOKS

Teachers of young children can make very good use of three types of picture books, namely ABC books, counting books and concept books. By themselves, they are not enough to fix 26 letters, 20 numbers, and colors, shapes, categories, and opposites in children’s minds. They are very helpful for introducing, practicing and reviewing, however.
Along with books, the teacher’s voice and a two-dimensional page of text and visuals, young children also need physical interaction, tactile experience, movement and games to master this basic foundation for language learning. So, here, books will serve as supplementary material, offering extra stimulation, review and vocabulary extension. With this in mind, we will look at the types of books and their presentation more closely.

ABC BOOKS

We understand today that it is not necessary for a child to learn the entire alphabet before they can start to use the English language. Yet there is clearly room for ABC books – especially entertaining and attractive ones – for the beginning learner, since they need to know the shapes, names and sounds of the 26 letters as they begin to read and write. In addition, students, parents and teachers can justly feel proud when children “know their ABCs.” It is also very important for users of English to learn the ABC sequence for future dictionary work and alphabetizing.
ABC books are frequently used by educators as a kind of organizing structure for introducing new vocabulary. In the process, simple phonics also plays a part, with “buzzing bees” and “big, brown bears”, through which the child becomes aware of the sound “b”.
There are certain important points about a good and useful alphabet book for young children, however.

1) No more than four objects should be presented on a page and they should be easily identifiable and meaningful for the child’s age level. It is best to avoid things which have more than one name (rabbit, hare, bunny, etc.) as this is clearly confusing. “T” for both tortoise and turtle works o.k., though.
2) The more common sounds of a letter should be represented, rather than blends or silent letters: kite and key are good, but knock and knee are poor choices. Also words like gnu and xylophone are misleading phonetically.
3) The ABC letters should be boldly and clearly presented, along with pictures that are comprehensive and consistent with the mood of the text.
4) Humor or silliness make the alphabet fun to work with, while lovely illustrations make these books a feast for the eyes. Many excellent alphabet books are presented on themes such as foods, city- country living, animals, transport, etc., and these are interesting, but often force strange word choices with letters such as “N”, “Q”, “U”, “X”, and “Y”.

If you are unable to obtain ABC books in English, you can always make your own. From magazines you can cut out photos or illustrate words yourself. Children can cut out or color in letters as they learn them and draw simple apple, ball, cat, dog, elephant and face as they create an individual book they can then “read”.

COUNTING BOOKS

Children will not learn to count from picture books, but rather from manipulating real objects adding, subtracting and dividing blocks, boxes, checkers, beans and pencils. By substituting pictures for real objects, the young child can make the transition from the concrete to its visual representation provided they have first experienced the real manipulation of objects.

Unlike ABC books, Russian counting books can serve the English teacher here. Most primary books go from 1–10 but a few go to 20, or present 20, 30, 40, 50, etc. I think it is also important to teach 0 (oh, zero) because they will need to read these numbers, too. The greatest difficulty with the English number system comes with 11–15 and I’ve never found a book that aids in this challenge; instead it takes repeated drill work and creative reworking to help young children master these numbers.
In evaluating counting books, you need to see if the objects to be counted stand out clearly on the page. Various groupings of objects should avoid a cluttered, confusing look. Illustrations and page design are most important in evaluating counting books. Accuracy is essential.
Many counting books present a cumulative procession of objects with a thread of a story to hold them together. Some also reverse the sequence of the plot and include the concept of deletion or subtraction.
Some folk tales, while not really counting books, have a story revolving around the ability to count; the game of “how many?” works within the story.

CONCEPT BOOKS

A concept book is one that describes the various dimensions of an abstract idea through the use of many comparisons. In some respects, it is a young child’s information book. Rather than presenting specific facts, a concept book explores many facets of an idea, object, concept. Well-defined concepts are necessary for children’s cognitive and language development.
ABC books and counting books are really concept books. So, too, are those books which help children identify and discriminate colors. Color books usually have clear bright graphics showing several pages of familiar objects for each color; green depicted by green leaves, grass, a snake, frogs, turtles, cucumbers, gooseberries and peas in a pod. Like other books of this sort, children need to work with green in the real world, too. “Who is wearing something green?” “Can you see something green in our classroom?”
Shapes is another concept introduced to children through picture books. Some have photographs of objects forming circles, squares, triangles, hearts, diamonds, ovals and rectangles. You can also work with prepositions of place and movement using other children’s books. Again, be warned, that special concepts (over, under and through) are best taught through real physical experience. Only after that can children benefit from books recapturing what they already know from active experience,
There are many good books presenting antonyms as pairs of opposites. Perhaps a city is pictured for night and day; a turtle pulls his head in for “in” and pokes it out for “out”; two eggs are “whole” while two others are smashed on the floor for “broken”. While going through these books with children, use every opportunity to physically act out the “push” and “pull”, “big” and “little”, “high” and “low”. In fact, having the students act out and paint their own “fast” and “slow” (and other pairs) will fix the words in their minds, especially if this is done without translation.
Other concept books introduce weather and seasons concerts, family relationships, wild animals and farm animals/pets, rooms and things in the home, and foods. All of these, quite naturally, extend vocabulary, serve as a pictorial reference, and help develop skills of classification. All these concept books can be a stimulus for questions: “What color is the lion? the sofa? the bread?”, “Is the brother taller than the sister?”, “Is winter colder than spring?”, and “Is the table square or round?” Concept books are not dependent on having English texts since it is what the teacher says that carries the interpretation of the pictures.
The more interactive the experience is made with these books, the more meaningful they become. After looking at and talking about triangles, have the children find the shape somewhere in the room (the doll corner, building blocks, musical instruments, etc.). After working with the concepts “round” and “flat”, get out the modeling clay and form round balls and then flatten them. Talk about changes: “Does it get bigger?”, “Can it roll?”, “Is it lighter? (weight)”. It is important not to be tied to the book, but use it as a stimulating resource. The more the teacher can open the atmosphere for some spontaneity (for herself and the children), the more classes will “flow” and be filled with adventure and joy.

Exercises

1. Find three ABC and Counting Books. Compare them for visual impact, suitability, and interest level.
2. Take a Concept Book about the face or body and develop three activities for approaching the vocabulary: One moving game/song, one guessing game, and one paper and pencil activity. Be creative.
3. Most ABC books are limited to concrete physical nouns. What if you could use all the children’s present lexis and create a classroom book? It would probably include sit, stand, yes, no, please, names of children, good morning or hello, etc.
4. What interactive game could you create for children to first experience “push” and “mill”? What about “over” and “under”? These could be done in pairs or maybe a circle or line activity for the whole class. Maybe, you, the teacher, would call out one word or the other and the children have to quickly do the correct action. Have fun.

By Erin Bouma