Hand in Hand – Emotional Development through Literature

Citation

Tuohy, C. (1999), "Hand in Hand – Emotional Development through Literature", Health Education, Vol. 99 No. 6, pp. 263-264. https://doi.org/10.1108/he.1999.99.6.263.1

This book is aimed at getting the most out of the Literacy Hour – at the same time as facilitating discussion of feelings and emotions through well chosen, popular, children’s texts. Its aim is to promote the use of texts in their entirety, focusing on the enjoyment of the story, rather than detailed analysis of sentences, text or word level work. Splitting the story up, it therefore covers comprehension strands in the National Literacy Strategy for whole class work and composition strands for group work. Aimed at the teaching of primary children, it provides two Literacy Hour lesson plan ideas and further suggested literature linked to each theme.

The book is divided into seven themes, each with two lesson plans and selected literature as suitable for younger or older children. Useful brief synopses are given at the back of the book, including the ISBN numbers of all texts mentioned.

The seven themes are: Being Me Being You; Growing and Growing Up; Friendship and Relationships; Grief, Loss and Bereavement; Fears; Being Safe and Staying Safe; and Talking About Feelings. They reflect topics of children’s emotional development, which are also frequently discussed in schools. The texts and the subsequent activities allow teachers to facilitate the exploration of the feelings and emotions related to these common themes. By studying the texts, children can practise describing their feelings, going beyond sad, happy and angry. Each chapter then provides two detailed lesson plans. With one exception, there is one aimed at younger children and one aimed at older children. Suggestions are then given for exploring each text, following the Literacy Hour structure. Each lesson plan is divided into sections: setting the scene for the whole class, focus questions for the children to consider, and comprehension. They continue with an opportunity to collect and elicit words to describe feelings and emotions relevant to each theme. The discussion is then directed towards the children’s own experiences. Ideas for individual, group or pair work direct children towards further exploration relevant to their own experiences. These guidelines are laid out clearly, with illustrations suggesting how the work can be recorded, which could be used for display ideas.

Hand in Hand provides a thorough lesson structure which enables teachers to explore the Personal and Social Education (PSE) syllabus, which is often limited to circle times. It also throws new light on some of the texts frequently used to match the Range Strands of the Literacy Strategy. It therefore overcomes the hurdles of resourcing the Literacy Hour and PSE separately by using texts relevant to the teaching of both. It gives teachers the basis for exploring children’s literature, using ready‐made lesson plans which are stimulating and fresh, and which cover themes which are often hard to plan. This book should also help children find the right words to express their emotions. With new PSE guidelines being introduced this year, this book should help to bring PSE into a cramped curriculum via the Literacy Hour in an exciting way. It is also a clear and useful resource for teachers.