Alphabet Books…Still?

Oftentimes, people read alphabet books with toddlers or preschoolers, but I find them to be appropriate reading for kindergarteners and older kids as well. There are so many great alphabet books on the market, and their best features are often lost on younger children. Yesterday I asked my son to pick out an alphabet book from a stack I had gotten from the library. I thought we’d read just one, but after we finished the first, he asked another. The first book we read was The Turn-Around, Upside-Down Alphabet Book by Lisa Campbell Ernst. The text is written on each page such that the reader is forced to turn the book around and view each letter in four different directions. It’s an intriguing way to look at and talk about letters with kids. For each different perspective, Ernst compares the focus letter to different objects. For A, she wrote, “A becomes a bird’s beak, a drippy ice-cream cone, a point of a wishing star.” My son enjoyed trying to see why the author chose certain objects to compare the letter to, and of course, he thought of some objects he thought would be better comparisons!

After Ernst’s book, we read A is for Salad by Mike Lester. I have to admit, I looked at this book before showing it to my son, and I didn’t think much of it. This is one of those alphabet books that asks kids to figure out the relationship between the featured letter and the claim the author is making about the sound that letter makes. Most of the books I have read in the past, however, have some sort of relationship between the claim they make and object that really doesn’t begin with the focus letter. Q is for Duck is a great example of that type of book. (“Q is for duck. Why? Because a duck quacks.”) A is for Salad seemed to me to be missing the point a bit. The text reads, “A is for salad,” and it shows an alligator munching on a salad. I didn’t think it would impress my son. I was quickly proven wrong when I heard his giggles page after page. I’m glad Mr. Lester knew his audience!

If you’re intrigued, check out my list of alphabet books for additional recommendations.

A New Series

                

In my ever-illusive hunt for books that are a good fit for my emergent reader, recently came across a series I am falling in love with called Training Wheels. (And no, I’m not employed by them…yet. I can always hope!)

What sets these books apart is the amazing photography, and the fact that some of the books take on advanced or unique topics that beginning readers might not have been exposed to before. This keeps interest levels high, and at the same time, the authors have managed to keep reading levels fairly low. They are not leveled according to any of the standard leveling systems, but they are leveled in a logical way.

Jane Hileman, a former reading specialist who is also a mom, founded the company that produces the Training Wheels series (American Reading Company). According to American Reading Company’s website, Hileman, “saw how quickly students advanced when using ‘books that fit’ – that is books at the appropriate level of challenge that match both the precise stage of the child’s reading development and the child’s interests.”

I couldn’t agree with Hileman more. Finding a good fit book is so essential to the growth of a beginning reader. Some kids do fine when they’re handed a book that is too hard for them to read, but others crumble.

I hope you’ll find the Training Wheel series to be as beneficial to your emergent reader as I have. Though my son wants to read each book only a couple times, he’s been enjoying the photography and even likes reading over the “power words” they list at the end. I can’t get these from our local library yet, so I’ve purchased 8 books at this point, and I don’t regret it.

So far, his favorite is The Chocolate Tree by Traci Dibble. With specific photos and simple text, it tells where chocolate comes from and how it is made. It’s something we have not had much experience with, so it was of high interest for my son. He also liked Colors in the Jungle by Kristina Rupp, Dolphins and Tigers both by Jane Hileman.

We’ve also read: Mountain Gorillas by Traci Dibble, Bats and Birds by Jayson Fleischer, and Giraffes Like to Eat by Matt Reher.

Make sure to check out all the supplemental information at the back of each book. In Colors of the Jungle, for example, there is a page at the end of the book telling all about the world’s largest flower because it was featured on the red page. The addition of sections such as these really helped draw my son in.

I can’t wait until he’s ready for Brown Bear or Black Bear? by Heather Warren and Robbie Byerly. I’m so excited! (and a geek, I know, but still I’m excited!)

Playing With Time

April 28, 2017

Wow! This stay-at-home, technology-deprived, non-millennial mama has created a website. It has been a fun process, but it took me a bit longer than I originally anticipated. I’m nearly ready to launch it, and I realized I’d better explain the posts to come a bit. When I originally conceived of the idea of a website/blog, I thought it would take me a few weeks to get up and running. Months later, I’m nearly ready. As I was creating the website, I occasionally would write a blog post with the intent of sharing them weekly or bi-monthly once things were rolling. I still intend to do that, but they’re not necessarily going to match what is happening in our lives right now. I think they’re still relevant, but the timeline might not exactly fit given I started writing them in November of last year. I figure if I put them all out now, though, it would be a lot to read all at once. Hope it still works.

Join Our Journey

My son’s art in October of his kindergarten year. (Astronaut, ship, suit)

This year, my youngest is learning to read. He is currently in kindergarten, and he is buzzing along with the process of reading just fine. He’s not zooming ahead of his peers, nor is he lagging behind. I’m guessing at a certain point, when his brain is developmentally ready to fully comprehend and retain the knowledge required of a more fluent reader, his reading abilities will make a giant leap. I’ve seen this before. Until then, however, I want to find resources to help him remain engaged in the process of learning to read. As I hunt through our home collection, the local book stores, and the library trying to find texts to support his growing abilities to read, I’m inviting you to join our journey. My idea is to share the books we have enjoyed or those that helped him figure out a specific word or skill.

That’s it. Nothing major, except that I have spent countless hours perusing the stacks and I thought it would be nice if I shared my findings with others. I hope this will help at least a few families get ideas for great reading materials for their kids. Enjoy!

Here We Go….

Prior to this year, I have given my son many opportunities to “read” books on his own using wordless picture books , alphabet books, and by using the text that artists embed in the illustrations . We’ve also come across some fun nearly wordless picture books featuring one or two-words throughout the whole book.

When he started to pay more attention to those words embedded in the illustrations, I purchased some easy readers from Scholastic. I thought they might work because they were non-fiction, and they were actually kind of written in a developmentally appropriate way. Unfortunately, they were not a big hit. So I turned to my old stand by…I made him a couple books using photos. When it was reading time, he consistently grabbed those from the stack. But producing your own books for kids takes time, and I wanted to find other books he might enjoy that were at a good level for him.

I had been searching online since my daughter was a beginning reader using terms like “early readers,” “emergent booklist,” and “beginning level books.” For the longest time, I found nothing.  Then, I stumbled upon a list entitled “Easy Reader Books That Are Actually Easy” at fantastic site called What Do We Do All Day? The list included a couple titles new to me. I was inspired.

Eventually, I found a few more lists when I searched the terms “Leveled Book Lists.” The problem with the lists I’ve found is two-fold. First, most of the lists I found varied quite a bit in what they termed “emergent.” They might include wordless picture books in the same list as Go, Dog, Go by Dr. Seuss (a level F or mid-year first grade book according to Fountas and Pinnell). The other part of the problem is that the books I found were either hard to come by, because they were books normally sold to a school market, or some of the lists simply didn’t offer many titles in all. From my experience, many emergent readers need to read at least a few books that feature the same sight word before it becomes part of their repertoire.

So, while I continue to look for a comprehensive list, I’m going to do the best I can to add to the lists currently out there. If you know of beginning readers that are fun reads, that I haven’t listed yet (I know there are many), please send them my way. I’d love to get a big list of resources out there.