The Measured Mom's Tips and Tricks for Teaching Emergent Readers + Great Battle Bunny Book Talk!!

To go along with the last post I did about finding those "easy" books for our earliest readers, I am thrilled to share an excellent explantation of emergent readers by The Measured Mom. She did a guest post about this on another great site, Teach Mama. Please go visit the post here and print out your free books! 

I think it's hardest for parents to understand the beginning reading process because when we think of reading, we picture a kid reading The Cat in the Hat or another kid's book. It's hard sometimes to see the value or interest kids will have in those teeny little boring books. Yes, I've had many a parent tell me those little books are boooorrrriiiiinnnnggggg. All I can tell you is that I have never thought those books were boring because I look at them as little treasure chests holding such great possibility for our little readers. Your attitude does play a huge part in your book choices and your child's attitude about books, so try to give the little easy books a chance. I must admit, they are getting better as educators realize that high interest subject matter is super helpful in engaging young children (especially boys!!). I also can honestly tell you that I have never had a child complain to me that those little books are boring. They get excited to actually be able to read a book and they don't seem to compare them to the bigger "real" books like adults do. So don't be afraid to show a little love to the emergent readers!

This also brings me to a new book I heard about over the weekend called Battle Bunny. 

The people on the radio station giving the review could not stop talking about how much they loved this book. It sounds hilarious and like a great idea to share with kids. What happens is that a child gets the somewhat lame book Birthday Bunny for his birthday and then he changes it all around to become Battle Bunny. It may be because I have a six-year-old boy who would completely love this book, but I can't wait to get it! Of course, the teacher and children's librarian in me cringes a teeny bit at encouraging children to color all over books, but in the right context it can be a great encouragement for imagination and writing. So, if you do end up wanting to change around some of those little books, you can always create your own versions! What is so genius about the author of Battle Bunny is that he actually has the whole Birthday Bunny book at mybirthdaybunny.com so you and your child can make your own version! So great!  For those of you who live close to me, I just ordered three copies. So the first two people to email me and tell me you read this post, I will give your child a copy for free!

Sharing Hilarious Parent Mistakes = Writing Motivation

Sometimes inspiration hits in the oddest of places. As there are many education blogs out there, I always get excited when I think of something quirky that you might not be able to find on ten other sites. Tonight while getting my son's bath ready, I was doing about ten things at once. I decided to fill the sink to soak a few things while filling up the bathtub while helping him clean up his unending Legos. The next thing we know, we're back in the bathroom and there is a flood going on. I had totally forgotten about filling the sink and/or had extremely underestimated how fast it would fill. Probably both. So water was flowing over the counter and spreading out along the floor. Joy of joys. What does this have to do with literacy, you ask?

My son's first question was, "Can I be the one to tell Dad?!?!" He assured me that he was not gleefully trying to get me in trouble but merely trying to transmit some information. Yeah, right. And so this became a great opportunity for using new vocabulary - flood, spilling, soaked, etc.- while practicing his skills of retelling a story in the correct order. Even if he just got to tell the story orally to his father, there would be some literacy merit. However, I would suggest taking it a step further and writing out a glorious and humorous tale of how mom almost flooded the bathroom. If your kiddo is too little to write out a whole story, have them dictate it to you or label and illustrate boxes with order words such as first, second, third, and finally. They just get so excited when we're the ones who mess up, don't they? I can see him being very engaged in this particular writing activity. Not to mention, what a great way to preserve these awesome family memories. He did say it was his favorite part of the day.