reading tips for toddlers

Mama’s Corner: What Makes a Book Stick?

Recently I noticed an interesting trend in the books that my children request me to read over and over again: bad.

Yes, my children enjoy bad books.

At first I thought that they had just inherited their father’s taste in literature, but then I realized that it had a little to do with me, too.  Whenever I happen to bring home a bad book from the library, I cringe the first time I read it.  With awkward rhyme, uninspiring illustrations, terrible (or no) story line, each page is worse than the last.  After I get over the initial urge to toss it into the return pile, I try to find something redeeming about it.  It was published after all, so someone must have found something worthwhile in it.

I think: Can I add voices?  Can I add sound effects?  Can I act it out?  Can I sing it?

I’ll try one or the other, occasionally all four, but somewhere along the way, something magical happens and my kids fall in love with the delivery.

The book sticks.

Our most recent example was originally a song by Ziggy Marley (Bob Marley’s son) that was then turned into a picture book: I Love You, Too.  It was pretty terrible at first read, but when I sang it to Luke and Brynn, they loved it.  I made up my own melody, but there’s no reason that one couldn’t listen to the song online or use an existing melody.

There is also something beautiful about singing a song with the refrain of “I love you, too.”  We all tell our children that we love them, but it has been amazing to have those words sung in bits and pieces all day long, week after week.  They became the soundtrack to our December, January, and February.

That “bad book” gave me an excellent excuse to cuddle with my kids and share my love for reading and music with them, and in my book, that’s pretty good.

 

 

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Reading Tip: “Can You Find?” The Most (Annoying) Amazing Reading Game

It’s late.

It’s been a long day.

All I want to do is read a few books with Luke, say goodnight, and put him to bed.

No can-do.  Luke wants to play “Can you find?”

I want to be annoyed that I’m going to have to think when I’m drop-dead tired, but I just can’t bring myself to be.  Because here’s the thing: “Can you find?” is an amazing game.

Essentially, “Can you find?” is our personal version of “I Spy.”  It began as a curiosity when Luke was about 16 months old and he began pointing to letters when we named them.  It quickly morphed into a fantastic way to communicate with Luke before he could speak himself.  We would ask him to find letters, numbers, colors, and shapes.  Despite sounding like we were quizzing him, Luke genuinely loved the game, and our proof is that it has persisted through a year and a half, has changed to meet his needs, and he still loves to play it.

Here are a few of the stages we have gone through with “Can you find?”

“Can you find….”

  • letters
  • numbers
  • shapes
  • colors (straight colors: red, green, yellow, etc. and then shades of color: light blue, turquoise, dark green, etc.)
  • words (started with known words, but quickly moved to unknown words–great for learning phonics and sounding out words)
  • directions (left, right, up, down, top, bottom)
  • other descriptive adjectives (long, short, big, small, skinny, fat, etc.)
  • emotions
  • unusual objects

The biggest benefit we have seen from playing “Can you find?” is the rapid vocabulary growth.  As we have to stretch our descriptive powers, Luke learns tons of new words.  We have progressed from “Can you find a yellow two?” to “Can you find three little tiny pink fish with spikes on their backs?” It also helps him hone his observational skills and provides us with a great game to play while we’re waiting in line out in public.

Here are a few of the books that Luke initiated “Can you find?” with:

For numbers:

  1, 2, 3 to the Zoo by Eric Carle: Inside the hardcover edition, the numbers 1-10 are repeated in different colors.  Luke STILL loves to play “Can you find?” with these numbers.  We’ve had to get very creative with our descriptions to avoid going insane: “Can you find the yellow two that’s farthest to the right?”  “Can you find the blue and purple number 45?”

For letters:

  Chicka Chicka Boom Boom (Chicka Chicka Book, A) by John Archambault, Bill Martin, Jr., and Lois Ehlert: For letters, nothing beats Chicka.  Luke loved playing “Can you find?” with the page where the letters all fall out of the tree and are a jumbled mess.

For colors and other descriptive adjectives:

   The Pout-Pout Fish (Pout-Pout Fish Adventure) by Deborah Diesen and Dan Hanna: For colors and other descriptive adjectives, Luke discovered Pout-Pout Fish.  On the first two pages of the book, there are a whole bunch of fish and other sea creatures surrounding Mr. Fish.  Luke LOVES finding the various creatures.  We can’t even read this book all the way through anymore.  We get stuck on the first two pages.  Annoying or amazing?

For objects and colors:

   Yoo-Hoo, Ladybug! by Mem Fox and Laura Ljungkvist: For objects and colors, this book is a new one that we just discovered.  Not only are you trying to find the ladybug (she’s pretty well hidden!), but there are all sorts of other items to identify as well.

And for “Can you find?” with words, Luke really enjoys looking at the inside of the dust jacket flaps.  The flaps are usually written for adults, so the vocabulary is more varied and more difficult than typical picture book fare.  It is here that we have seen his decoding ability and phonics knowledge soar.

Happy reading and finding!

–Erin (blog Mama)

 

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