This week I’m featuring one of my favorite authors for older babies and toddlers: Leslie Patricelli.
We love all the books we have by her and even my big boys love listening to them again and again and laugh out loud. Here are a few of our favorites:
When I was a teacher it used to absolutely break my heart to hear my students tell me they couldn’t read (or write). Let me tell you something….kids don’t think those kind of things unless someone has told them that they can’t read!
Here is a short (4 min) video of my boys reading. One day I had gotten all new books at the library and while my husband and I were finishing cleaning up dinner, we found the boys on the floor in the front entryway reading and it was so sweet so my husband started recording. Sorry for me in my sweats and the homemade video. 
My boys had several favorites this week…although I have to say, none of them was really my favorite. Nelly May was pretty cute and my boys laughed and laughed. The Nowhere Box was sweet as well and promoted my kids’ imaginations. But sometimes my boys love books and I can’t pinpoint why!?! I just roll with it and indulge their interests and we read them again and again.
Sometimes my boys bring me a book to read and I cringe because I’ve read that book a million times! But what I should do is cheer! (Ok…maybe we won’t go that far.)
Rereading books is amazing for kids for a few reasons….it helps deepen their comprehension of the text and their understanding of the vocabulary from the text. It can also make the book more accessible for them to read on their own. (see the post about the Three Ways to Read a Book) Last, it helps solidify their understanding of how books work…that there is a beginning, middle and end, that the story is always the same, and that there are problems and solutions in books.
Think about a favorite movie you’ve seen or a favorite book that you’ve read many times….mine is “To Kill A Mockingbird.” I’ve read it maybe ten times but the first time I think I was in eighth grade and the last time about 5 years ago. I’ve changed and learned a lot in those 20 years between the first and last times I read it and the book means different things to me now than it did when I was fourteen. Also, I understand it much more deeply because I’ve read it so many times.
When kids read books again and again, they understand the story so much more deeply and their depth of understanding about the vocabulary in the text is amazing! My kids often use words like: properly, scrawny, compromise, appreciate, dissipate, and commence. They use those words because they appear often in the texts that we’ve read again and again so they understand their meaning on a deep level and are able to use the words in their everyday conversation.
So the next time your kids bring you THAT book…instead of cringing….jump for joy because you will know that you are helping deepen your children’s vocabulary and comprehension skills.
My boys love, love, love these books by Karma Wilson. They are written in rhyme and they contain some sophisticated vocabulary as well which is great because the kids want to hear them again and again. We own every one now but our favorite is Bear Snores On. They are all great and we recommend them all!
by Amanda Noll
by Adam Rubin
by Christie Matheson
by Pat Zietlow MillerA house is only as strong and stable as the foundation upon which it’s built. The foundation for learning to read is phonological awareness. It is one of the biggest predictors for future reading success. Phonological awareness refers to a hierarchy of skills which involve the ability to hear and manipulate sounds in words. They are skills which must be taught and practiced and are usually taught during pre-school and kindergarten. True phonological awareness involves only sounds. I think about it as something you could do over the telephone because there is no need for sight. It’s all about the ear.
Remember that this is a hierarchy so I’ve begun with the easiest skills and progressed to the most difficult. Here is a summary of the skills involved:
* Word awareness—knowing that words have meaning and being able to identify individual words.
children must know that a cat is an animal with four legs that says meow so that they can properly understand the printed word
* Syllable awareness—knowing that words can be divided into parts.
bat has one syllable
puppy has two syllables
* Rhyme awareness—knowing that certain words contain the same ending parts.
tree, me, he, we, see, three, bee
* Onset and rime—the onset is the initial consonant in a one syllable word and the rime is the vowel and remaining sounds.
/s/ + /un/ = sun
/c/ + /at/ = cat
* Phonemic awareness—knowing the smallest units of sound in a word. Children must be able to segment, blend, and manipulate the individual sounds in words.
/b/ + /a/ + /t/ = bat
bat = /b/ + /a/ + /t/
change the /b/ in bat to /m/ = mat
Teachers are trained in teaching these skills and for parents it can be overwhelming so I want to offer a few ideas for helping with this so you can help lay that solid foundation.
First, talking and reading with your children is the best thing you can do because it gets their ears open to listening to new language and vocabulary. You can never read too much to your kids and it’s ok if you read the same books over and over because that’s how they learn that vocabulary more deeply and meaningfully.
Second, we play a bunch of “games” in the van while we drive that the kids love. Phonological awareness should be practiced for 10-20 minutes a day so that drive to school or the grocery store is a perfect time to get in some practice while also avoiding fights in the car! (Is it just my kids who do that???) These can be differentiated based on the child’s age.
* The rhyming game: I say several words that rhyme and have them tell me one more. As they get better at this, you can make it more difficult by saying one word and having them give you a word that rhymes. To make it easier, you can also give them three words and ask them to tell you the word that doesn’t rhyme.
* The alliteration game: I give the boys a letter sound /f/ and ask them to tell me all the words they can think of that start like that sound.
* I tell the boys a letter of the alphabet or I give them a sound and they tell me the corresponding sound or letter.
* We sing/say nursery rhymes or tongue twisters.
* I tell them a word and ask them how many syllables.
* I tell them a word and ask them to tell me how many sounds are in the word. For example, I will say “bug” or “tree” and they will tell me that each has three sounds.
This week’s library books were a hit! The boys had several that they loved. Here were their favorites:
by Mercer Mayer
by Kathy Long
by Eric A. Kimmel
by Helen Ketteman
by Alyssa Satin CapucilliK is only 3, (nearly 4) do you maybe have a suggestion for getting him to write letters? I know his attention span is short. I’ve tried letting him choose colored pencils or crayons, changing colors. I’ve let him do the activity part of a workbook page first. I just can’t seem to get him to write the letters. Is he just being stubborn or is he just maybe not ready for this?
These books are so cute and even I love to revisit them. My oldest son has a little bear blankie (affectionately named Bear Bear) that he has to have with him any time he’s tired or sleeping so I can relate to little Trixie in this book. I, too, had a blankie when I was young and I bet most of you had something as well.
Mo Willems touches your heart with these books about Trixie and her Knuffle Bunny.
Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale
Knuffle Bunny Too: A Case of Mistaken Identity
Knuffle Bunny Free: An Unexpected Diversion (Knuffle Bunny Series)
by Joe Kulka
