One Book at a Time: Introducing Bibliotherapy in Primary Education

Course description

Bibliotherapy is the process of growing towards emotional good health through the medium of literature. Its broad goal is to assist young people with the challenges of developmental tasks through a responsive interaction with literature.

If you are looking for a way to help your children to cope with stressful life experiences, the therapeutic role of literature is definitely worth to be considered.

Bibliotherapy can help you in several circumstances, such as bullying and aggressiveness, fears and anger, complicated family relationships (divorces),  bereavements. It can also help relieve stress, provide successful coping strategies, and help an individual to express both feelings and ideas about a problem or difficulty.

Learning outcomes

This self-paced training course will give the participants the opportunity to:

• Gain in-depth knowledge of the therapeutic role of literature and its importance in the mental, emotional and social development of children;
• Understand the concept of Bibliotherapy and its uses;
• Learn the criteria for choosing and evaluating crisis-oriented books for young children;
• Increase their awareness of contemporary children’s books about “sensitive” social issues/everyday life stressors;
• Learn how to use quality literature books with children to help them cope with stressful life experiences;
• Discover the teacher’s role in implementing Bibliotherapy in the classroom;
• Learn how to write complete lesson plans and implement Bibliotherapy activities on selected children’s books.

Course structure

Topic 1. Bibliotherapy: inviting stories to help children cope with stressful life experiences

In Module 1, we’ll discuss the books’ value and their role in children’s social and emotional development. Also, we’ll talk about Bibliotherapy and its definitions, goals, phases, and the changes it can cause in both students’ behavior and cognitive skills.

Topic 2. The theoretical principles of bibliotherapy

In Module 2, we’ll discuss the theoretical principles of Bibliotherapy. First, we’ll distinguish bibliotherapy into two fields of practice: developmental and therapeutic, and their differences. Then, we’ll go on with the basic principles of Bibliotherapy and the selection criteria of books for bibliotherapy, and the teachers’ role. The part of methodology comes up next to help us become familiar with the 5 – step process of delivering bibliotherapy instruction. Finally, the limitations of bibliotherapy are mentioned.

Topic 3: Implementation: sample lessons with selected books

In Module 3, we’ll get into practice. First, we’ll explore how to present a bibliotherapy session in the classroom and what questions to ask students to help them understand the story and the characters. Second, we’ll go through the procedure of planning activities according to a model lesson plan.

Topic 4: Closing thoughts

In Module 4, we’ll remember the basics of bibliotherapy. Summarizing the course, we should keep in mind that teachers can use the experiences of characters in quality children’s literature as a powerful tool to open dialogues with their students and help them relate the messages in the books to their own personal struggles. Finally, we are invited to watch a TEDx talk about reading as a radical act and the module finishes with some “famous last words” by Marcel Proust.