#5 - Cultural aspects of childrens' books that affect comprehension

The two children's books that I looked at from the perspective of culture are  Jean De Brunhoff's The Travels of Babar, and Falling Up, a book of poems by Shel Silverstein.  

In Babar, the setting is very specific to wealthy people. This could provide a cultural understanding gap for many ELL students.  Babar and Celeste, the main characters, are royal elephants.  The settings that they visit in the story include the African savanna, a chateau in the French countryside, a cruise ship, a circus, and ski slopes in Europe.  Of these, it possible that ELL students are familiar with some of these locations through experience or reading.  It is likely that most of these locations are not in their personal schema.  To build background, the class could do a quick vocabulary activity of vacation terms, or places around the world, using a map with graphics from the book drawn on it.  This would help students to make text-to world comprehension connections between where the characters are in the book and the real geographic location.

In addition, the story was originally written in 1934 in French.  It was translated in to British English, so some of the language is uncommon, like the elephants "inquire anxiously" "eat with relish", say they are "delighted to make your acquaintance", and "encounter savage cannibals" throughout the story.
It would be difficult to provide the necessary schema for students to learn all of these terms before reading the book.  The teacher could quickly provide explanations for any unknown terms while they are reading.  Since students are not likely to see this language in too many other contexts, there should not be too much effort in to having them learn the terminology before the reading.  Since the advanced vocabulary is combined with very detailed pictures and a fun and simple story, this book it is a good opportunity for students to be exposed to British English to build schema for more advanced reading later on.

One cultural difference that could affect comprehension in Falling Up  is a poem entitled "Cereal".   The poem is an ode to the many kind of cereal, including Rice Krispies, All Bran, Shredded Wheat, Wheaties, Oaties, and Wheat Chex.  Previewing this fun poem would be a great opportunity to talk about the American food culture, and the hundreds of choices that we have at the grocery store.  The teacher could show pictures of each cereal box, or even have samples.  Students could list, discuss, compare American cereals or other foods with similar foods or brands from their countries before reading the poem.