StoryWalk: An "active" approach to literacy

Fall is coming, fall is coming ... so goes the song we have been singing. But now, without a doubt, fall is here! We've had an unusually long and spectacular foliage season, with plenty of sunshine and the pleasant crisp air that rejuvenates you with every breath.

What better way to celebrate fall than by reading this lovely tale, Leaves, by David Ezra Stein. A young bear, in his first year of life, becomes distressed at the falling leaves of autumn. He tries to attach them back on, but to no avail. So he settles down for his winter hibernation ... only to find the green leaves welcoming him when he awakes in the spring! A lovely little tale ...

While at a literary festival in Burlington in September, I learned about an exciting recently developed project called StoryWalk (TM), which constructed and now loans out picture books as a set of stakes with backed and laminated pages. Whoever loans the book sets the stakes up along a trail of their choice - for example, the town of Bristol recently set them up along the path from the elementary school to the public library. StoryWalk (TM) was created by Anne Ferguson in partnership with the Kellogg-Hubbard Library of Montpelier, VT, and the VT Bicycle and Pedestrian Coalition, and has been supported by a variety of other organizations.

Well, when I saw the example Anne had set up at the festival, I knew I wanted to try to loan a book for our school. Sure enough, Leaves was available for the last week of October, and I was fully supported by my cooperating teacher, the school nurse, and the principal. Several colleagues expressed an interest in the project, too, and one third-grade teacher volunteered to pick it up for us in Montpelier.

We received the book in five bundles of stakes, along with a starter stake, so as not to damage the stakes when putting them in the ground. I set them up on a trail that wrapped behind the school and circled the sports fields before returning to the front of the school again.


Our school sits right next to a wooded area with trails to a local neighborhood, so the setting was just perfect for Leaves. We took our Kindergarteners out the very first day, despite the threat of rain. I learned quickly that five-year-olds need to practice making a half-circle around Exhibit A in a way in which everyone can see. My cooperating teacher helped facilitate this practice: First, we situated them where they should be. After we read a page, we walked together to the next page, nobody getting ahead of me, until I called "Freeze!" I walked up to the page, then invited them to make a half-circle, guiding and helping as necessary. When they seemed to get it, we said, "Now, let's see if you can make a half-circle on your own at the next page..." Off they went! ... And they did just fine. "You need to give them explicit instruction at the beginning, practice a few times, but then you need to give them the freedom," said my cooperating teacher. Lesson learned!


All in all, it was a great alternative to our typical Storytime. The children especially enjoyed the character of the bear. Because he is "in his first year" ("What does that mean?" - "He's just a baby!"), they were greatly entertained by the bear's misunderstanding of the fallen leaves, much the way we adults are entertained by the comments children make. I could see them take a certain pride in knowing something the bear didn't, if they didn't just find it funny. Either way, I could see how the character was particularly developmentally appropriate for Kindergarteners: his ignorance boosted their sense of their own knowledge; his genuine concern endeared him to them; and the nonsensical questions he asked ("Are you okay?" he asked the leaf.) especially appealed to their sense of humor.

That afternoon, the story provided an especially nice drawing opportunity for our journal writing. It also gave me the chance to recall the storyline with them in small groups, show what the real book looked like, and learn from them what part or image of the story they remembered or liked the best. This was an especially nice opportunity just to talk with them, for the sake of my own learning about them: their perceptions, their ideas, and what they relate to most. This is the great gift of teaching that people forget to tell you about. These close encounters come in such personal little doses, like the last little box under the Christmas tree, that they are easy to miss. But they are essential to the healthy life of a teacher, like the very air we breathe, but also tend to forget in our daily thanksgivings.