This month’s theme shares six early social communication skills you can teach using the “That’s Not My” books written by Fiona Watt and illustrated by Rachel Wells.
Pay attention to what children like (or seem curious about) and follow their lead as long as you are a part of the action, too. Remember, the most important thing is for children to have fun doing this with you! Fun means engagement and that excites children's brains and bodies for meaningful learning to happen.
1- “Yes,” and “No”
These books are perfect for supporting young children to understand and communicate “yes,” and “no”. As you read through the books, you can read the phrase “that’s not my…” and model “no” and shake your head. After each phrase pause, pause and wait for the child to take in what you are saying and doing and maybe even imitate you. Then, on the final page you can model “yes!” and nod your head while looking visibly pleased. Again, you can pause and give the child time to imitate you too. You can also ask yes/no questions– “Is that my elephant?… nooooo”, and model ‘no’ and shaking your head in response. These books are great as they provide lots of opportunities for repetition throughout, so the child has plenty of opportunities to hear the target words and imitate you!
I love using these books to support the use of symbolic sounds and exclamatory words. You can get books for lots of different animals and vehicles, which is great if you are focusing on using animal or vehicle noises. You can also encourage the use of exclamatory words when the child feels the sensory patches- “oo”, “wow”, “ahh”, ow!”, etc. And, because the books are naturally very repetitive, the child has multiple opportunities to hear and use the target sounds.
You can take turns turning the pages in the book and take turns touching the sensory patches. You can model “my turn” and name what you it is touching or how it feels when you touch the patch and do the same for the child when it is the child’s turn. You can pause and wait expectantly here too, so the child has the opportunity to take their turn and listen to the words you are labeling.
These books are perfect for targeting early vocabulary such as animal and vehicle names (e.g., cow, cat, puppy, car, bus, etc.), and body parts, and for building later vocabulary such as adjectives and negation. The repetitive nature of the books means the child gets multiple opportunities to hear and use the target words too. You can also extend the child’s learning by adding props while reading and pointing out the features on the props as you read (e.g., have a stuffed teddy bear to point out and name the ears/nose/foot on the doll as you look at the pictures).
Another skill you can target is the use of phrases. All of the pages in these books start with the same phrase “that’s not my…”, so you can pause after ‘not’ and encourage the child to say “my X”, (e.g., my cat, my bear, my puppy, etc.). You can also model phrases that include the adjective and encourage the child to use these, e.g., “soft cat”, “shiny bus”, etc. Again, the repetitive nature of these books means the child will hear lots of models of the target phrases.
Because the books are all “touch and feel” books, they have various sensory patches throughout that encourage children to put their whole hand on the patch and touch with their fingers. We can use this natural inclination to show and encourage children how to use their index finger to point. You can model how to scratch and feel the patches using one finger and encourage the child to try this too. You can also encourage them to point at the patches on each page, using just their index finger. Do the same to point and name the pictures on the page.