Print Spotlight Story Time

An ordinary bedtime story with one small change — a few times during the book, you shine a “spotlight” on the print itself by pointing to it, talking about it, and asking your child to show you where the words are.

  1. Choose a picture book with large or eye-catching print — speech bubbles, words in the pictures, BIG shouting words, or a repeated line.
  2. Before you start, ask, “Show me where I should start reading on this page.” If your child points to the picture, say warmly, “The picture shows us what’s happening — and these marks here are the words I read.”
  3. Read the story as usual, but run your finger under the words for a line or two on some pages.
  4. Three or four times in the whole book — no more — pause for a print moment. Mix comments (“Look, these words are inside a bubble. That means the bear is talking”) with questions (“Which way do I go next?” “Where is the last word on this page?”).
  5. When you reach a line break, show the return sweep: “I’ve got to the end of the line, so I jump back down to here.”
  6. Point out one piece of print that looks special — a huge word, a wiggly word, a sign in the illustration — and wonder aloud why the author made it look that way.
  7. Finish the story without interruption so the ending is pure enjoyment.

Variation: hand your child the “reading finger” for a favorite book they know well — they move their finger under the words while you read at their pace, slowing down or stopping when their finger does.

Requirements

  • Space: Anywhere comfortable for a shared story
  • Surface: Lap or sofa, with the book where both of you can see the print
  • Materials: A picture book with large, clear, or playful print; optional small torch for a literal spotlight
  • Participants: 1 adult + 1 child (works with 2 children if both can see the page)
  • Supervision: Full — the adult reads

Rationale & Objective

Eye-tracking research shows that when adults read aloud in the usual way, preschoolers look almost entirely at the pictures and rarely at the print (Evans & Saint-Aubin, 2005) — so years of bedtime stories can pass without a child learning much about how print works. Print referencing, developed by Laura Justice and Helen Ezell, fixes this with a small adjustment: the adult uses verbal cues (comments and questions about print) and nonverbal cues (pointing and tracking) a handful of times per book. In a classroom randomized trial, preschoolers whose teachers read this way made greater gains in print concepts and print knowledge than children read the same books without print references (Justice et al., 2009), and follow-up work found advantages in early reading up to two years later (Piasta et al., 2012). The technique targets exactly the skills in this subdomain: that we read print rather than pictures, where reading starts, and left-to-right, top-to-bottom direction (Common Core RF.K.1a; ELOF Goal P-LIT 2).

Progress Indicators

  • Early: points to the picture when asked “where do I read?”; does not look at the print unless you point; treats the words as decoration
  • Developing: points somewhere in the print when asked where to read; knows that speech bubbles and signs in pictures “say something”; watches your finger as it moves
  • Proficient: points to the first word at the top left as the starting place; shows left-to-right direction and the sweep down to the next line; notices BIG or unusual print and comments on it
  • Advanced: points out print features unprompted (“that’s a shouty word,” “that says the same as on the last page”); tracks the print with their own finger while you read; asks what a particular word says

Safety Notes

  • No physical risks beyond those of any shared reading
  • The real hazard is overdoing it — too many print questions turn a cozy story into a lesson and can put a child off books; three or four print moments per book is plenty
  • Never withhold the story or turn pages back because of a wrong answer; simply show the answer and read on
  • Lack of interest in print at five is common and usually reflects habit, not a problem; persistent difficulty seeing the page or sitting close to make out pictures is worth raising with a pediatrician or optometrist

Hints

  • Playfulness: use a small torch as a real spotlight under the covers, or let a finger puppet be the “word finder” who gets very excited about speech bubbles
  • Sustain interest: pick books where the print does something — comic-style books, books with signs and labels in the pictures, books with words that grow, shrink, or wobble
  • Common mistake: only asking questions. Comments (“this word is roar”) teach just as well and keep the mood relaxed; aim for a mix
  • Limited space: needs nothing extra — fold it into the story you were going to read anyway, or do it with a cereal box at breakfast
  • Cross-domain: talk about what the characters say in speech bubbles (comprehension and social understanding); read shouty words loudly and tiny words in a whisper (expressive language and voice control)
  • Progression: you point and comment → child shows where to start → child shows which way to go and the return sweep → child finds the first and last word on a page → child tracks the print in a familiar book while you read

Sources

  • Justice, L.M. & Ezell, H.K. (2004), “Print referencing: An emergent literacy enhancement strategy and its clinical applications,” Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 35
  • Justice, L.M., Kaderavek, J.N., Fan, X., Sofka, A. & Hunt, A. (2009), “Accelerating preschoolers’ early literacy development through classroom-based teacher–child storybook reading and explicit print referencing,” Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 40
  • Piasta, S.B., Justice, L.M., McGinty, A.S. & Kaderavek, J.N. (2012), “Increasing young children’s contact with print during shared reading: Longitudinal effects on literacy achievement,” Child Development, 83
  • Evans, M.A. & Saint-Aubin, J. (2005), “What children are looking at during shared storybook reading: Evidence from eye movement monitoring,” Psychological Science, 16
  • Zucker, T.A., Ward, A.E. & Justice, L.M. (2009), “Print referencing during read-alouds: A technique for increasing emergent readers’ print knowledge,” The Reading Teacher, 63
  • Common Core ELA-K — RF.K.1a (follow words left to right, top to bottom, page by page)