The Sea Saw
Written and illustrated by Tom Percival
Review
- age: 4+
Let’s start our children’s book club with an engaging children’s picture book. ‘The Sea Saw’ by Tom Percival is an endearing story about a young girl, Sofia, who is heartbroken when she loses her beloved teddy bear at the beach. Sofia and her dad search for the bear, only to come up empty-handed, but the Sea saw. In a moving twist, the Sea tries to return the lost bear to Sofia. Accompanied by captivating illustrations, this heartfelt story of loss, hope and determination will leave you with the message that ‘nothing is ever truly lost if you keep it in your heart’.
Speech, Language and Communication Targets
Explore the speech, language and communication targets that can be incorporated into your book sharing time with Tom Percival’s ‘The Sea Saw’. Start with selecting 1-2 targets that you would like to focus on and model the chosen targets while looking through the book together. If your child is interested in a particular picture or they comment or ask questions, follow their lead by acknowledging their communication, pausing and making your own comments.
Love and Interests
- Teddy bears, soft toys, treasured belongings
- The beach and the ocean
Stage 1 Gestalt Language Examples
Use the pictures to guide you rather than reading the book word for word. These are some examples of Stage 1 gestalts that you could model with your child.
While these are examples of mitigable gestalts, they are not a “one size fits all.” Gestalts should be chosen based on your child’s interests and what’s useful to them.
- Let’s read together
- It’s a bear
- I don’t want this one
- Let’s read it again
- How about a different one?
- We finished the book
Language Targets
Vocabulary
- Labelling things, actions and places
- Describing (adjectives and adverbs)
- Mental verbs (e.g. knew, decided, realised)
Early Concepts
- Location – up, far, in, off, through, on, out, down, along, close
- Time and sequence – first, last
- Quantitative – more, less, none, empty, again, many
- Descriptive – old, long, little, small, cold, warm, wide, shallow, new
- Emotions – loss, alone, concerned, upset, enjoyed, exciting, cross
- Negation – no, not
Question words
- Who
- Where
Higher-level language
- Making inferences
- Predicting
- Problem solving
- Personification (the Sea)
Grammar
- Regular past verb tense (e.g. carried, packed, called, stopped)
- Irregular past verb tense (e.g. saw, flew, kept, bought, found, went)
- Possessive nouns and pronouns (e.g. Sofia’s, her)
- Subjective pronouns (e.g. she, it, they, he)
- Conjunctions (e.g. and, but, so, then, until, as, after, when, for)
- Adjective (e.g. old, tatty, long, perfect, shallow)
- Adverbs (e.g. slowly, curiously, terribly, gently)
- Prepositions (e.g. on, in, off, through)
Speech Sound Targets
Ask your child to listen for one of these speech sounds while you read the book. These words target the speech sound at the beginning of the word.
- /s/ – Sofia, sea, saw, seaside, seagull, sad, soon, something, seal, safety, search, sunny, silently, sand, sat, safekeeping
- /b/ – bear, belonged, born, boat, bus, bought, bag, battered
- /p/ – picnics, park, pudding, perfect, pounded, packed, pecked, piece
- /d/ – day, down, decided, difficult, dolphin, dock
- /t/ – tatty, toy, took, tumble, terribly, towering, tell, time, telephoned
- /g/ – girl, gave, guide
- /k/ – kept, catch, company, curiously, carry, cold, concerned, called
- /f/ – father, finally, fish, fall, found, forwards, first, far
- /l/ – loved, long, less, like, lightning, last, little, lost, looked, left, locket, live, land, luck, lakes, lady
- /w/ – went, waves, wide, whisper, where, washed, water, whale, way, wind, whipping, warm
- /s clusters/ – scarf, splash, storm, small, snipped, spring, stream, slowly, stopped, staring, scoop, stood, smiled
Story Targets
- Setting (the beach, the sea)
- Characters (Sofia, her dad, bear, and the Sea)
- Initiating event (Sofia, her dad and bear go to the beach)
- Problem (a storm comes and they lose her bear)
- First plan and attempt (Sofia and her dad look for her bear)
- Feelings (loss, upset)
- Second plan and attempt (the Sea tries to give the bear back)
- Feelings (determination)
- Resolution (Sofia gets her bear back)
Book details: Published by Simon and Schuster UK Ltd in 2019.
ISBN: 978-1-4711-7243-4
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