Reading Is Good

Author: Doreen Cronin; Illustrator: Betsy Lewin

Click, Clack, Moo

Betsy Lewin (Illustrator). Atheneum 2000, Library Binding, 32 pages, $7.38

Farmer Brown has a problem. His cows have just found an old typewriter in the barn, and much to his chagrin, they’ve learned how to use it. Unhappy about how cold it is in the barn at night, the cows hammer out a note. ‘Dear Farmer Brown,’ it says. ‘We want electric blankets.’{MORE}

When Farmer brown refuses their request, a furious written exchange ensues. As the chickens get in on the act, too (’No milk. No eggs,’ the note reads.), Farmer Brown is left with little choice: he agrees to exchange electric blankets for the typewriter.

But when the Duck, who has some ideas of his own, is asked to act as the middleman in the exchange, Farmer Brown suddenly finds himself with another note. ‘Dear Farmer Brown,’ this one says, ‘The pond is quite boring…’

I’m not entirely certain which is funnier, the story in Click Clack Moo, or the fact that the kids I read it to have no idea what a typewriter is. I literally have to bring one into school and show them what it is, and what it’s for. You should see their eyes light up. They look at me as if I invented it myself.

Still, once they understand what the contraption is about, kindergarten and first grade kids always enjoy this story. I think it’s because they are, themselves, just learning how to use the written word to communicate their ideas and wants, and they feel an affinity for the cows struggle against the odds.

In the case of Click, Clack, Moo, this is an affinity that educators and parents can put to good use. While this book is a great, fun read, adds to the already well documented canon of Farm Books, and has lessons to teach about conflict resolution and compromise, its strongest lessons, I think, are those it teaches about writing.

Many young children question why they must study academic subjects, and simply don’t see the point behind learning to write down what they can so easily say aloud. Click, Clack, Moo models for them the power of the written word, how writing is used to communicate from afar and is a great tool to use in getting the things that you want. That lesson alone makes it a worthwhile read.

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It’s story time in your class. Today’s book is Andrew’s Loose Tooth and you’ve just reached the point where little Andrew bites an apple and lets out a painful scream before begging his parents to help pull out his tooth, and you are faced with a choice. You can read it in a normal voice you know, just, plain — or you can ham it up, really let out a full barrelled yelp and sob the words, “Mommy, mommy please do something about this tooth! It hurts so much I can’t even eat my breakfast!”

Which do you choose?

If you’re the reserved type, you probably go for the first — the quiet, ‘read-the-words’ type of approach. And that’s okay. But while there is nothing inherently wrong with reading to children in this way, I would argue that the second option, the modesty-to-the-wolves, let-down-your-hair approach, can have a far reaching positive impact on children’s early literacy development.

In fact, there are three solid reasons why throwing propriety out the window and getting outright SILLY while reading to children will make a huge difference in their ability to read and write.

1. Silly is fun, and fun is engaging.
2. Silly is light, light is relaxed, relaxed is more successful.
3. Silly is expressive, expressive is fluent, and fluent IS reading.

Let’s explore each in more detail.

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Reading specialists say that phonemic awareness is an ability to “hear and manipulate sounds in spoken language.” Okay, sure. But for most people this is a pretty cryptic definition. What does one do while “hearing and manipulating” phonemes? What, exactly, does that entail?

Below is a list of what many researchers agree are the 4 most important phonemic awareness skills. A child who can do each of these is well on his or her way to becoming an effective reader.

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Helping young children master literacy skills hinges on an ability to make those skills fun and relevant. If we can find ways to integrate teaching with something that children already love, the child’s enjoyment of the activity will do half the work for us.

This article discusses one of the best ways parents and I have discovered to integrate learning letters and sounds into daily home life: through cooking.

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Author: Dan Yaccarino; Illustrator: Dan Yaccarino

Unlovable (Owlet Book)

Dan Yaccarino. Owlet Paperbacks 2004, Paperback, 32 pages, $4.06

Alfred is an unhappy pug. The cat insists that his round head, squashed face and tiny little legs make him absolutely unlovable, and the other dogs in the neighborhood don’t help any: no one will play with him because of the way he looks. Then, one day, a new dog named Rex moves in next door and Alfred, desperate to make a friend, tells a lie. A harmless one - ‘I’m a golden retriever,’ he says - but one that comes back to haunt him when Rex decides to dig under the fence and meet Alfred face-to-face.

First of all, Alfred is really cute, and I always wonder how Yaccarino manages to pull off the story he does, telling us that Alfred is ugly and unlovable, when it’s so obviously clear that he is anything but. In fact, I have yet to read this to a group of students and not have them interrupt to argue the point. ‘He’s really cute!’ they exclaim. ‘Look at his little tail … what a mean cat!’

Which is, of course, the entire point of the story, and what, I think, makes it such a great book for character education and helping establish a sense of community amongst children. They all immediately see the injustice of how Alfred is treated. They connect quickly with his desire to make Rex his friend, and while they agree he shouldn’t have lied, I think they easily see why he did it and, more importantly, how the way he was treated by his peers drove him to it.

So, clearly Unlovable is a great book for talking about bullying and friendship and loving yourself and others for who they really are. What’s interesting to me, however, is that this same lesson makes Unlovable a great way to teach children about connecting with characters in stories; one of the key things a burgeoning reader must be able to do.

The fact is, most fiction, adult and children’s alike, is all about character. It’s about characters doing things, having reasons for doing them, then feeling and reacting to what happens as a result. This is what drives fiction forward. If we can teach young children to think about those things, to empathize with how Alfred is feeling and understand why he tells that white lie, we are, in essence, teaching them how to understand that story.

And this is more than a minor point. Reading comprehension is THE goal of learning to read. The letter sounds, the spelling, the phonics, the sounding-out — all the reading skills children learn — are just ways to get them reading the words of the text. The ultimate goal of reading is to understand what has been read. Understanding character motives and feelings is a huge and important part of that, and Unlovable is, without a doubt, the perfect book for practicing and building that ability.

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Author: Tim Egan; Illustrator: Tim Egan

Serious Farm

Tim Egan. Sandpiper 2006, Paperback, 32 pages, $1.83

Farmer Fred runs a serious farm. He’s not mean or sad or angry, just serious. He thinks farming is serious business and so do his animals. Until one day when the animals decide they’ve had enough. Fed up with Fred’s seriousness, they decide it’s high time they had a few laughs there on the farm. So the animals, led by Edna the cow, set on a campaign to get a chuckle out of Farmer Fred. Try as they might, the animals still can’t get a rise out of Farmer Fred. Frustrated, they decide to run away from Serious Farm.

Serious Farm is a rare kind of children’s book. It appeals to kids because it is interesting, lighthearted, and funny. But at the same time it has a complex storyline, difficult vocabulary, and a heartfelt message. The result is a book that is able to engage students and get them talking and thinking about complicated things without boring or losing them like you would expect a ‘deeper’ book to do.

The setting of the story (a farm) is a common one for children’s books. If you look through a collection of farm stories, you’ll see that almost every one of them is humorous in nature. Kids pick up on this sort of thing and bring them as expectations to reading new books. Serious Farm doesn’t disappoint. From the cover picture, with it’s deadpan animal faces, right through the story to it’s plot resolution (the look on the animal’s faces when they hear about lions in the woods is priceless), this is a funny book.

What’s more, it invites kids to think funny on their own. As the animals do silly thing after silly thing to try and make Farmer Fred laugh, my students always start yelling out their own ideas about what the animals might do next. It takes great creativity to think up those sorts of antics. It takes a special kind of book to inspire that creativity.

The plot of Serious Farm is more complicated than most children’s books - the animals are tired of being serious; they do silly things to get Farmer Fred to laugh but they don’t work; the animals run-away; Farmer Fred is sad and goes after them; they have a chat about individuality and loving each other despite their differences; everyone goes home happier - but is presented in a way that, with some adult guidance - makes it accessible to 5 and 6 year old kids. It affords us many opportunities to talk with kids about complicated things, too, like the shades of meaning between serious and angry, and the fact that feeling differently isn’t a reason for people to not get along.

Overall, Serious Farm is a great book to read with kindergarten and first grade students who are learning to read. Its complexity stretches kids understanding of stories while it’s familiar setting, characters and great sense of humor make it accessible and engaging.

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At its simplest, comprehension means to understand what is being communicated. While this seems straight-forward to us as literate adults, it’s actually an incredibly complicated process for young children to master.

Most researchers distinguish between listening comprehension and reading comprehension. The two are related, and both draw upon similar areas in the brain to process incoming information, but there are some important differences. We will explore these, and the impact they have on teaching young children, below.

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Decoding is the act of systematically turning written words into spoken words by matching written letter or letter-clusters to oral sounds. Students must be able to decode unknown words while reading. There are several different ways to do this: letter-by-letter (phoneme) decoding, pattern decoding, and decoding by analogy. Although all three are powerful skills, none of them comes “naturally.” Decoding must be directly taught in order for students to learn how to read.

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Phonics defines the relationship between written letters and spoken sounds. For instance, the knowledge that the letter “B” makes a “buh” sound is phonics.

Young children must be able to instantly translate a letter or letter cluster into the correct sound (and vice versa) in order to effectively read and write. This translation between letters and sounds is the central skill in phonics.

Phonics instruction in schools should be both explicit, with the relationships between letters and sounds directly taught, and systematic, where letter-sound relationships are presented in a pre-determined order. Research clearly shows that a school phonics program which meets these criteria results in stronger readers at an earlier age.

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Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear and manipulate sounds in spoken language.

Phonemic awareness activities deal only with speaking and listening. There is no print component — no talk of letter names nor written words — in phonemic awareness.

Educators often say that you can recognize a phonemic awareness activity because it can be completed in a pitch black room (although doing so would probably be weird). There is nothing to see while exercising one’s phonemic awareness.

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Read below for information on resolving problems, instructions on button use, and other issues surrounding the use of the Question Writer Toolbar. If you have any unanswered questions, use the comment box below.

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Many teachers want to provide students with practice in reading, thinking about, and answering test style questions. One problem, however, is formatting those questions in a way that is similar to the appearance of the test. Microsoft Word lacks an easy way to create verisimilitude in teacher written questions. The Question Writer Toolbar solves this problem. The toolbar features buttons that correspond to the various question formats used on standardized reading tests. Simply select the style of question you need, and Word inserts a formatted question. Type your question and answer choices into the gray fields and you’re done.

Download

Set Up File for Microsoft Word 2000 … QWSETUP2000.EXE

Set Up File for Microsoft Word 2003 … QWSETUP2003.EXE

Set Up File for Microsoft Word 2007 on Windows 7 (and Vista?) … QWSETUP2007.EXE

UPDATE:  I’ve added a version of the setup file for Office 2007 above.  My computer runs Windows 7, so I’m not 100% certain it will work on Vista, but I believe the two operating systems should handle it the same.

A note about Word versions:  the Web Organizer buttons work differently in MS Word 2000 and MS Word 2003, thus the different versions above.  I have not had access to other versions for testing.  If you have a different version of MS Word and run into problems, leave a comment below about what went wrong and I will work on fixing it.

Installation

1. Download the self-extracting installer to your computer (see above).
2. Double click the icon to run the setup program. Follow the instructions.
3. Open Microsoft Word. The toolbar should be visible just above the document ruler and ready for use (see Screen Cap below).
4. Visit the Help Page for details on the toolbar buttons and how to use them.

Screenshot

Click to enlarge.