Njeri's New Adventure Summary

The creation of the children’s book Njeri’s New Adventure utilizes a number of literary devices to support literacy development. This captivating story about a young girl who moves from Africa to Canada with her family engages readers both through text and photographs. Kirk and Clark (2012) highlight that through rhymes and repetition children are able to explore words that sound similar encouraging phonological awareness. The use of rhyme and repetition is embedded throughout the story to promote phonological awareness as a way to provide increased opportunities for literacy development.

Phonological Awareness

Phonological awareness refers to an individual’s ability to hear and manipulate a variety of sounds in spoken words as well as recognize various parts of speech including syllables, rhymes and letter sounds (Canadian Council on Learning, 2006; Johnson, McDonnell, & Hawken, 2008). A child’s level of phonological awareness is directly related to later reading outcomes. Phonological awareness is enhanced when children are exposed to rhymes, have opportunities to practice letter sounds, and have opportunities to identify initial sounds in words

(Johnson et al., 2008). When intentionally chosen by an educator storybooks provide rich opportunities for increasing children’s ability to develop phonological awareness (Mihai, Friesen, Butera, Horn, Lieber, & Palmer, 2015). Likewise, research suggests that shared storybook reading encourages children’s development of phonological awareness (Mihai et al., 2015). Njeri’s New Adventure fosters the development of phonological awareness in children by providing a repetitive story that includes an abundance of rhymes within the story. Furthermore, this story promotes students’ engagement by providing a story that young children will be able to relate to – with the main character being a young child, similar in age to the audience the story is intended for.
Rhymes
The story Njeri’s New Adventure is embedded with rhyming words that capture children’s attention and provide a rhythm to the story. For example, the second page of the story reads as: “Njeri lives in Africa, and is used to the heat, she loves to feel the hot sand with her feet”. Kirk and Clark (2012) highlight that the use of rhyming words in literature allows children to explore and compare words that start with different sounds but end with the same, in this example heat and feet. The word at the end of a sentence rhymes with the word at the end of the next creating the opportunity to focus on the similarities and differences of the sounds. Books that focus on sounds and rhymes are directly related to enhancing children’s development of phonological awareness (Canadian Council on Learning, 2006; Mihai, Friesen, Butera, Horn, Lieber, & Palmer, 2015).
Repetition
The use of repetition contributes to children’s ability to successfully read as it allows children to learn the sounds of the words and develop phonological awareness (Saracho & Spodek, 2007).

Furthermore, reading books with repetitive refrains enhance the predictability of the story, which further supports children’s literacy development (Johnson, McDonnell, & Hawken, 2006). However, educators are cautioned to consider the intended readers when selecting books and not to undermine their abilities by selecting books that are overly predictable (Dickinson, 2002). Njeri’s New Adventure exposes readers to the repetition in the refrain throughout the book providing the opportunity to predict what might come next. Yet the story remains intriguing for the children and is not overly predictable for the intended

readers.
Diversity
In the story Njeri’s New Adventure both the text and the photographs provide children with a real-world experience. Despain, Tunnell, Wilcox and Morrison (2015) suggest that literature is a form of socialization for children and that from literature children learn to understand the world around them. Therefore, when selecting literature for children it is important to consider aspects beyond their ability to support literacy skills. Tschida, Ryan, & Swenson Ticknor (2014) highlight the importance of using complex and authentic literature to foster children’s understanding of the diverse world around them. The story of Njeri’s move from Africa to Canada encourages young readers to develop a personal understanding of Njeri’s perspective, helping them move from ethnocentrism to a large world view (Tschide et al., 2014). Njeri’s New Adventure is realistic fiction that supports children’s understanding of the diverse world they live in.
Conclusion
Children’s literature is a growing part of classroom learning and an important tool for developing literacy skills. Njeri’s New Adventure is a captivating story that was designed to focus on the development of literacy skills through the use of rhyme and repetition to promote phonological as well social-emotional development through a realistic and diverse story. Focusing on these aspects of child development encouraged the creation of a book that carefully unutilized literary devices to support children’s developing literacy skills while providing a real-world experience to learn from.