Concepts of Print

Locating the Cover, Title Page and Back of a Book

The following scripted lesson is designed to serve as a guide that parent-teachers may wish to use to help their children learn to identify the front cover, back cover, and title page of a book.

Books are organized into different parts, and to get the most out of reading any book it’s a good idea to know what each of those parts are and why each is included.

First of all, the front of a book is called the book cover (use and refer to one of your student's favorited books, pointing out each part as you discuss it). The book cover on many books is hard. It will always have the name of the book, which is called the book's title. It will also have the name of the person who wrote the book, whom we call the author. Sometimes the book cover will have the name of the person who drew or painted the pictures that are in the book. We call that person the illustrator. And finally, book covers usually have some type of picture on them.

The main job of a book cover is to grab your attention and attract you to the book so that you'll want to pick it up and look inside. It should also make the book distinctive, meaning that it is different enough from other books to make it easy for you to recognize it quickly. And finally, a book cover should give you some idea of what's inside the book—of what the book is about.

Most books also have a title page, which gives the name of the book's title, its author, and its publisher a second time.

And finally, the back of a book is called the back cover. It has information about where and when the book was made, which is called publication information and copyright date.

Now it's your turn. I'm giving you a different book now, and I want you to show me where's the front cover, the back cover, and the title page.

Structural Features of Written Materials

Print Concepts / Reading Comprehension

Locating Title, Table of Contents, Author and Illustrator

Books and stories are organized into different parts, and to get the most out of any book or story, it's probably a good idea to know what those parts are and why they are included.

For example, every book and every story has a name, called the title. You find the title on the front of a book and at the beginning of a story. The title should give you some idea of what's inside the book or story. In other words, the title should help you figure out what the book or story is going to be about.

For a book or a story to even exist, someone had to write it.This person is called the author. The cover of a book and the beginning of a story will have the name of the author as well as the title.

Some books and some stories have pictures along with the words. The person that draws or paints these pictures is called an illustrator. Often, the illustrator's name will be just under the name of the author.

Have you ever been on a treasure hunt? Books could be thought of as a treasure chest of words, and in the front of most books is a kind of map called a table of contents.

Take out a book and see if you can locate the table of contents. It is found in the front of the book. It is a list of the chapters (parts) in the book along with the page on which each chapter begins. Look it over carefully and observe what you find on the page. You should be able to locate chapter titles and page numbers. Using a table of contents, you can quickly answer questions like:

How many chapters are in the book?

On what page does Chapter Four begin?

Where do I find information about . . . ?

The table of contents in books of nonfiction let you know what kind of information is in the book, while the table of contents in fictional books provide a clue as to what will be each chapter's main event. Look at the table of contents in other books. Try to figure out which books are nonfiction and wich are fiction.

Structural Features of Written Materials

Print Concepts / Reading Comprehension

Printed Materials Provide Information

To help beginning readers recognize that printed materials provide information and to expand on their awareness of the forms and uses of print, they should be provided with meaningful reading experiences even before they are actually reading on their own. More specifically, they should follow along as you read books aloud.

Look for books that tell stories which will engage your learner’s interest while presenting him or her with opportunities to apply the knowledge he or she is gaining with respect to letter names, letter shapes, letter sounds, and individual words.

As you read, model behaviors and strategies that your learner needs to develop to become a successful reader including browsing, making connections, making predictions, asking questions, clarifying unfamiliar words and passages (first by using illustrations and later by using context), wondering, interpreting, summarizing, visualizing, re-reading, and reading with purpose.

In this way your student will not only learn about the relationships between spoken and written language, but will also learn to think about what he or she reads.

Structural Features of Written Materials

Print Concepts / Reading Comprehension

Sentences Are Made Up of Separate Words

To help your beginning reader develop an awareness of the fact that sentences consist of separate words, provide him or her with frequent opportunities to follow along as you read. Choose a book you can read expressively so your learner has the opportunity to simply hear and enjoy the story or poem. Then read the selection once more, but this time point to each word as it is read. In this way, your student will not only come to realize that sentences are made up of individual groups or units of letters -- called words -- but will also come to recognize the left-to-right/top-to-bottom progression of print on a page and the clues that indicate the beginnings and endings of sentences.

Most reading material written for beginning readers contains a good dose of the high frequency words that most children already have in their spoken vocabularies and that provide the foundation for all meaningful stories. These are words that a reader should instantly know without having to decoder them or figure them out. Research has shown that reading skills improve with the growth of a readers sight word vocabulary. As your learner becomes familiar with these words and begins to recognize and identify them in the selections you read, the fact that sentences consist of separate words will become even more obvious.

Consequently, your student should learn to quickly identify these words at a glance. Learning to identify high-frequency words quickly, accurately, and effortlessly is a critical part of a student's development as a fluent, independent reader. Not only will this help make it clear that sentences are composed of words, but your child will then be able to focus more of his or her attention on unknown words and on comprehension. This is a link to a list of high-frequency words, and here are nine activities for helping your child master the lists:

Structural Features of Written Materials

Print Concepts / Reading Comprehension

Have your child read one list at a time. Note any hesitations or errors. Words that had hesitations or were unknown can be written on index cards. Work on learning 5 - 10 at a time. Write words on individual flash cards. Children read through cards.

Make 2 sets of flash cards. Children match and read the words.

Play a game of "Memory" or "Concentration" with the 2 sets of cards.

Child says and spells word on card.

Child says name of word and creates a sentence with this word.

Child searches for a particular word in a magazine, cereal box or newspaper article. Use a highlighter to show the word.

Look for small words inside the High Frequency Word.

Talk about the meaning of the word.

Find/talk about words that rhyme with the words