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Oxford University Press have revealed a new series titled Big Words for Little People. This series marks a new development at Oxford Children’s Books, which sees the list leveraging OUP's expertise in children’s language development, reading and learning.
The series is drawn from the Oxford Corpus of Children’s Language with vocabulary picked out by OUP’s language experts. The stories are written by Helen Mortimer and illustrated by Cristina Trapanese.
The six-part series will launch with two titles, Bravery and Kindness, in September 2020, followed by Calmness and Friendship, in January 2021, and Doing Your Best and Happiness in April 2021. The books will be hardback square format.
The titles draw on research from the Oxford Children’s Corpus, a unique and special children’s language database, which includes over a million stories written by children age five plus. The corpus has given Oxford “a deep understanding” of the words children use and the words they need to help them be confident communicators. The Big Words for Little People series is therefore engineered to support young children to develop and understand how they can use their words to help them navigate emotions and first experiences.
Senior publisher Samantha Armstrong said: “We’re really passionate about children’s language, and we know that having the right vocabulary helps children to feel more confident and more likely to achieve their full potential. We want the experience of building essential early language skills to be a really special one.”
Helen Freeman, director of Oxford’s Children’s Books added: “Whether a child is learning to read, reading for pleasure, building their vocabulary skills, or doing their best in tests, we see it as our responsibility to hold the hands of children—and parents—through key educational milestones.”