Big Books
Purpose of Big Books
• Reading Big Books together is nonthreatening “social learning activity”.
• They show students how to read naturally,
with understanding, for enjoyment.
• They are an enjoyable way of introducing
beginning readers to the written form of
their language.
• They can be read many times so children
can develop the concept of ‘story’.
Characteristics of Big Books
• They are BIG! Should be A-3 size or larger
• Pictures are big, easy to understand and are
clearly related to the text (so students can
“read” the pictures).
• Text is large & readable.
• Story type is familiar, acceptable &
interesting to the learners.
• Language is natural & memorable with
predictable text and lots of repetition.
Using Big Books
• Read the story (can read many times)
• asks WHO, WHAT, WHEN,
HOW,WHY questions AND… ask
each other questions
• re-tell the story
• act out the story
• change the ending of the story
• change the characters in the story
Other activities with Big Books
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Oral cloze activities
Matching word activity
Matching sentence activity
Make-a-sentence activity
draw their own picture about the
story and add their own “text”;
share their story with others
Steps in Making a Big Book
1) Write & edit the Big Book story
2) Have someone else check content,
language, spelling and handwriting
3) Put text and pictures onto A-3 paper in
pencil
4) Proofread one last time, make corrections
5) Go over text and pictures using a black
marking pen. Leave space at the bottom of
the page for page numbers
6) Make a small “Guide Book” or dummy to show
you how the pages will be put together
7) When you are SURE that you have the pages
correctly ordered, put double pages in order; tape
the double pages together
8) Make the cover (picture, title)
9) Tape the cover page onto the cardboard cover.
Tape around all the edges
10) Fasten front and back covers together, using
masking tape and several layers of duct tape
11) Tape inside pages together
12) Check the order of pages one last time. Then
sew the inside pages to the covers.
13) Tape over the string with final layer of duct tape.