A

Teacher Prompt

By

Noura Khamis & Yasmin Ibrahim

What is a Story sack?

Story sack is a cloth bag containing a picture book with supporting materials to promote children's
reading skills. To make the reading more fun, the story sack provides a storybook, character's masks,
nonfiction book related to the story, props, games and activates. Additionally, some guided instructions
for teachers and parents of how to use the story sack.

The purpose of story sack is to give the parents and teachers the power and confidence to enjoy reading
books with children. In fact, the story sack contents offer a multi-language skills approach from
providing some opportunities such as:

1- Listen to the stories read aloud.

2- Extend vocabulary.

3- Read and retell the story.

4- Extend general knowledge by using nonfiction book.

5- Develop social and cognitive skills from interacting with the reader and answering the reader's
questions.

Typical contents
-Childs Folktale storybook: Jack and the Beanstalk
-Non-fiction book essential atlas of botany
-Characters props (masks)
-Audio CD: Jack the Beanstalk
-Five learning activities
-Story vocabulary cards
-Cloth sack
The Fiction Picture Book:

Here are some suggestion of activities and questions you might ask the children to provide a rich and
beneficial experience for them.

*Talk about the book. Discuss the cover, title, author and layout.

*Ask the children what they think the book will be about.

*If they have read the story before, ask them what they can remember?

*Read the story aloud with using your face expression and change your intonation.

*While reading stop and ask questions about the illustrations to make a strong connection between
words and pictures.

*As you read, ask the children to act out some actions like holding hands for anger.

*At certain points in the story stop and ask the children "what do you think will happen next"?

*As you read, point to the words with your finger to show the children where you are reading.

*Stop at some difficult words and ask the children to predict the meanings, then explain the meaning.

*Focus on the phonics, ask the child what letter these words start with and can you give a word that
ends with the same letter?

*Talk about the story characters and ask the children to describe them by using adjectives.

*Once you have finish reading the story together, ask the children "what did you learn from the story?"
which was your favorite part of the story, why?

The nonfiction book:

-Why do we include nonfiction book in the story sack?

Nonfiction book is not always a common choice for children to read. But, when children read fiction
books they will tend to know more about the storybook. In this case, providing factual books related to
the storybook can develop their early reading experiences and differ between the storybook
information with nonfiction book. As a teacher, you have to place the nonfiction book with the
storybook to attract children and make them read the nonfiction book.

What are the benefits of the nonfiction book about?

It is full of fascinate young children information.

It test and improves children's general knowledge.

It provides opportunities for questions and finding the answers.

It includes contents, photographs and diagrams that support the storybook.

Main characters masks and props:

-How can you use the masks and props to bring the characters to life?

Most of the children like handling props, soft toys, and masks, they find it very enjoyable. However,
they can be used to examine characters, promote vocabulary and improve your child's understanding of
the story.

Here are some suggestions for activities:

* Wear the masks while reading the story to help the children link between character and facial
appearance.

*Make the children act out the story by using the characters masks.

*make the children wear the masks and interview their peers about the story.

*Suggest the children to create other props or puppets could be useful for the story.

The CD

There is a CD inside the story sack to promote your child listening skills. Additionally, you can use the
CD for listening activities such as listening and ordering the sequences.
Game and activities

Games and activities are interesting tools for children to practice reading and writing as well as learn
vocabularies. In the story sack, they are designed to extend children's experiences of storybooks
concept. When playing or adopting an activity make sure that you know the task concept and rules.
Therefore, relate the task with the storybook to help the children make connections like who is this?
When did this happened in the story? Moreover, there are five related activities for different levels,
styles, skills with instructions to help the teacher apply them easily.

Other features:

Comprehension
Where does the story take place?
Who are the characters?
Who is your favorite character and why?
Which character dont you like and why?
What are the problems the characters face? How do they solve these problems?
How does the story end?
What lesson does this story teach you?

Word Fun
This story is full of wonderful descriptive vocabulary: magic, golden etc
Together, choose a character from the illustrations and think of a word to describe it.
There are vocabulary cards inside the story sack to remind students of some important
vocabulary.