“Can I change my name too, Miss?”
Book chat with my student — Part 1
When reading aloud with child, there were always additional interaction layers I put into.
Until there was a time that I found my little 4 y.o fella had caught it quite above critical for her age.
One day, while waiting for her mom pick her from school, she came over me and had asked me to read this book for her.
A mini board book about Prophets by Mizan.
As illustrated book designated for ages 2 and above, it’s obvious that this book series are not giving a detailed narrative about the Prophet’s life story, rather a summarized description of it. On each page, this light narrative book only put 1–2 sentences with less than 10 words per page.
At that time, as a new Preschool Teacher who came from non teaching background, I already keen to early childhood education and children book and had practicing interactive book chat reading for years.
When my student ask me for that, I used this book chat approach on our reading. I pointed to the pictures and asked questions about how they related to the story, and repeated certain words to emphasize the interesting ones.
Until it came to a certain page, she’s in-turn ask me, “Miss, what kind of city is Yatsrib? where is it?”
I thought to myself at the time, she picked a great question. “Yathrib was the name of a city that once existed in Saudi Arabia. Now the city of Yathrib has been renamed Medina.”
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She came up with follow up question, “Why did the name change?”
Still remember very clearly how I manage to paused for a moment then, trying to give the simplest answer possible despite the complicated story behind it. “Because back then, the name Yathrib had a negative connotation… So, when the Prophet Muhammad came from Mecca and wanted to settle in this city, he gave it a name with a better meaning, Medina. Medina means ‘city of residence.’”
She fell silent; perhaps her mind was tailoring something inside.
At that moment, I tried to add another point. “Indonesia used to have lots of name before our independence day. And the city of Jakarta — it used to be called Batavia.”
After a moment of silence, she finally reacted. “Can I change my name too, Miss?”
A remark I hadn’t expected. “Hehehe, so Nura wants to have a name change too?” I went along with her spontaneous thought for a moment, then offered a deeper explanation about naming.
“Your name Nura is already a good one — it means ‘light.’ Aba and Mama named you Nura to pray that you’ll kept shining and be able to illuminate others… A name is given as a prayer. Just like when the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him changed the name of the city of Yathrib to Madinah to pray that the city would become a safer place to live.”
Looking back, this precious moment of reading books enhances their critical thinking skills.
At age 4, she’s in the stage of egocentric thinking, exhibit a strong sense of ownership, and are beginning to understand their sense of self or personal identity.
By learning that a city’s name can change for the better, she directly relate the concept of “name” to themselves.
According to cognitive development theory, at this age, they are also in the pre operational stage, where their understanding of the concepts of conversion and logic is still developing.
Read-aloud and book chat activities can stimulate children’s reasoning as they form perspectives that differ from their own. Don’t underestimate the value of interactive shared reading.
