Scaredy Squirrel is BACK! - and he's as scared as ever...

Imagine my thrill when walking past a cool little bookstore on Broadway near Chicago's Lincoln Park, when I look in the window and see "Scaredy Squirrel Has a Birthday Party." Daughter #1 and I proceeded into said bookstore to check it out. You may remember my love for Melanie Watts' Scaredy books. And this being a story about Scaredy attempting to throw himself a birthday party, the subject is near and dear to me. We sat on the provided red and blue kids chairs in the kids section and read a great kids book.

Scaredy attempts a birthday party where nothing can go wrong because no fun can be had. You see, he is scared of EVERYTHING. Eventually, the party is a huge success because all of Scaredy's plans fail and all his dog friends have a great time.

Also, the book is full of Scaredy's great check lists, plans and maps. IMPORTANT for parents interested in helping kids with reading - the push currently is for complex text structure applied to non-fiction. You will learn more about this from your kid's school as states adopt the Common Core State Standards. Anywho, when reading non-fiction kids will encounter "text features" and "domain specific vocabulary." Even though Scaredy Squirrel books are works of fiction, Watts incorporates a lot of great, interesting text features with the list, maps, and plans. Good stuff for beginning readers.

Picture Books and READING

Dr. Suess and Maurice Sendak don't have to worry, but other writers of children's books really took notice of a recent New York Times article that may have been the beginning of the end for children's picture books. This article says that picture books are sitting on the shelves of book stores and then being sent back to the publisher because they are not selling! So, this may be a product of "the economy" (which I'm pretty tired of hearing about and don't understand) but really this is another result of our heavy emphasis on standardized testing and reading scores!

Another example of the tail wagging the dog (which actually sounds like a great title for a children's picture book). Anyway, parents have decided that the pressure is on for their kids and they need to push them a little harder and force them into chapter books in Kindergarten and First Grade. Don't get me wrong, there are great chapter books for young readers, but this trend discounts the great possibilities picture books offer for young readers.

The truth is, teachers and parents should be using picture books to teach reading strategies and to allow kids to practice reading strategies. As the father of a soon-to-be two-year-old, I can tell you that picture books will always have a place in our home. We are visual learners first, and helping kids make connections between ideas, words, and things is vitally important. Picture books can model story elements for kids AND help them with the process of reading, counting, problem solving, communicating and critical evaluation - all 21st Century Skills for success.

For Teachers and Parents check these out:


Books For Teaching Reading Strategies

Why Picture Books

Book Review - New Classics and Big ideas

Does this ever happen to you?

You are so taken with a fine book or movie or CD or idea that you want and need to share it with everybody you love. You want to stock up on this book or CD and save it for birthdays or  Christmas. You want everybody to be as excited about it as you are.

Jon J Muth is a writer and illustrator who brings ancient teachings, stories and simple truths to children's books in a way that makes me want to purchase every copy in Barnes and Noble so that I can give them as gifts.

I have an affinity for books that contain beautiful ideas that are accessible to kids and that are also beautiful to look at. Zen Shorts and The Three Questions are exactly the type of books you should keep to share - with your kids, with your grandkids, with your nieces and nephews. Keep them up on a bookshelf and bring them down for special times.


Zen Shorts is a Caldecott Honor Book that introduces us to Stillwater, a giant panda who moves into the neightborhood and befriends siblings Addy, Michael and Karl. In turn each of the kids visits with Stillwater and shares there own concerns, worries, fears or frustrations. With each child Stillwater shares a story (I love a-story-within-a-story) that illustrates the child's dilemma from a different perspective and provides a short meditation on anger, luck, and giving. Stillwater's stories come from Zen Buddhist and Taoist tradition, but Muth makes them accessible to kids.

 The Three Questions is Muth's take on a Leo Tolstoy's short story of the same name.

"When is the best time to do things?"
"Who is the most important one?"
"What is the right thing to do?"

In Muth's version young Nikolai is searching for answers to these questions (and not getting answers that seem right for him) when he meets the wise turtle Leo digging in his garden. In turn Nikolai helps dig the garden, saves a panda and then her baby from harm. In doing so he has the answers to The Three Questions.

Muth combines his study of Zen, Leo Tolstoy, and his belief that learning through stories can help us all to create books for kids that are important.

And there is a reason that Zen Shorts is a Caldecott Honor Book. His artwork is sublime. I happen to love watercolor anyway, but the skill and beauty of these books is incredible. I want to frame every page and put them on the wall.

Get these books!

The Easiest Way for Parents To Help with Reading Instruction

 This is a great reminder from a great blog:

LitBlog

Fluency is the easiest part of reading instruction that parents can help with at home. 

"Fluency is the ability to read a text accurately and quickly.
When fluent readers read silently, they recognize words automatically. They group words quickly to help them gain meaning from what they read. Fluent readers read aloud effortlessly and with expression. Their reading sounds natural, as if they are speaking. Readers who have not yet developed fluency read slowly, word by word. Their oral reading is choppy and plodding.

Fluency is important because it provides a bridge between word recognition and comprehension. Because fluent readers do not have to concentrate on decoding the words, they can focus their attention on what the text means. They can make connections among the ideas in the text and between the text and their background knowledge.

•    More fluent readers recognize words and comprehend at the same time.

•    Less fluent readers, however, must focus their attention on figuring out the words, leaving them little attention for understanding the text.

Research Supported Fluency Strategies in LitART
1.    Model fluent reading and have students reread the text on their own.
2.    Conduct guided reading (provide feedback and guidance during reading.)
3.    Use repeated oral readings of the same text to increase accuracy and rate.
4.    Facilitate partner reading to increase oral reading opportunities
5.    Employ reader’s theatre to allow for a performed reading."

Germphobic, compulsive, hypochondriac children have heros too!

Scaredy Squirrel
written and illustrated by Melanie Watt


The classics are great. Who can’t get into a little Dr. Suess, Brothers Grimm and Mother Goose (each of which are filled with much craziness in their own right). But being a member of Generation X, I find myself looking for the quirky, the fresh, the out-of-the-ordinary, the non-typical in all things. It’s why I rejoiced when bands from my college days like They Might Be Giants and Bare Naked Ladies started making music for kids. They took the genre to knew place and added wit.

This why the books by Canadian author and illustrator Melanie Watt are so fun – particularly her Scaredy Squirrel series which features a compulsive, germ phobic, arachnophobic, anal-retentive, hypochondriac  squirrel who spends all day and night in his tree on the look-out for anything that might harm him. Readers are even warned on opening the book to wash their hands carefully,

Did I mention that Scaredy is anal-retentive? He is the consummate planner and has complete steps and strategies to avoid harm and how to react in case of emergency. Step 1: PANIC!

He has a contingency plan for everything, but when a killer bee flies into his safe area he is so startled that he falls from his safe tree only to discover that he can safely glide to the ground. Once safely on Terra firma, Scaredy realizes that he is still in danger and takes the only course imaginable, he plays dead.

Not your typical book and not a typical telling. Scaredy’s situation is told through great illustrations that include diagrams, maps, daily routines and a full page of Scaredy doing nothing but faking his own death. Of course he makes it back to his tree to continue his adventures of being scared in Scaredy Squirrel Makes a Friend, Scaredy Squirrel at the Beach, Scaredy Squirrel at Night in which he shares his fears of walruses, rabbits, beavers, piranhas, Godzilla, pirates, jellyfish, lobsters, sea monsters, seagulls, falling coconuts, dragons, faeries, ghosts, bats, unicorns, and polka-dot monsters.

Of course there is nothing to be scared of. And a preposition is something you should not end a sentence with. BUT, that is really the point. There are a lot of real fears that we should take precautions against, but Scaredy goes overboard. Watt may not have had this in mind, but it’s a good lesson for kids anyway – especially if they tend toward the germ phobic and compulsive. Scaredy can be a lesson or a hero – or both.

Reading Strategies for Picture Books: Start with the pictures of course. Point and name and have children name the items on the page when they have verbal skills. This becomes really important as children see different images that are vastly different representations of an apple. How many different ways are there to draw an apple? Infinite. But kids being able to identify an apple even in abstract is an important developmental stage and gets kids ready to read.

I have to mention another Melanie Watt book too. (And I should point out that Watt first name is supposed to have a little accent mark over the “e” but I can’t figure out how to do that.)  

Have I Got a Book for You! is a rather silly, hilarious and almost pointless book in which the entire message is to convince the reader to purchase the book they are currently reading about buying the book which they are currently reading about a book they are currently reading about…..you get the idea. I think Charlie Kaufman would do the movie adaptation - starring Phillip Seymour Hoffman. If you have any sales experience - this books speaks to the Sisyphian nature of the world.

Watt is original, funny and witty. She puts a great twist on storytelling.


Scaredy Squirrel
written and illustrated by Melanie Watts 
Reading level: Ages 4-8 
Hardcover: 40 pages 
Publisher: Kids Can Press, Ltd. (February 1, 2006)
ISBN-10: 1553379594 
ISBN-13: 978-1553379591

Hooray for Reading Day: Readers Theater

“Somewhere along the way I came to understand that reading skills are simply thinking skills applied to a reading situation. Is the problem that kids with reading difficulties really can't analyze, can't evaluate, can't classify? That they lack those thinking skills? Or can they not do those things in a reading situation? To find out, I began listening to students with reading difficulties talk, recording what they said to learn what type of thinking their talk revealed. As I listened, I saw what the skill-activity sheets weren't showing me: these students certainly can analyze, synthesize, and evaluate. They can compare and contrast and classify, and they can summarize an event, pulling out the main ideas. They can do the thinking. They just didn't yet know how to connect their thinking skills to a reading situation. They needed a strategy, a scaffold, that would provide the framework for the thinking they needed to do to read with certain skills.”

                          -Kylene Beers and Reading Strategies


This is a great quote and set of ideas from Kylene Beers who is one of the top thinkers, writers, and teachers in the field of reading instruction. Her experience as a reading teacher started as a literature teacher for secondary students, but she realized that her kids had not yet made the transition from “Learning to Read” to “Reading to Learn.” That is – they were still decoding, not fluent, and, therefore, not great at comprehension.

Reading is a tool we use to get at the knowledge we seek, which means it is kind-of odd that Reading is now a subject in upper grades rather than just in lower grades. Sadly, unless kids start school with a foundation for reading (and I mean in Kindergarten), then there is a good chance that “reading” will be something they need to study and work on well into adolescence.

Which brings me to a great kids book. Hooray for Reading Day by Margery Cuyler and illustrated by Arthur Howard follows Jessica the Worrier through a day at school and small-group reading time in Mr. Martin’s class. As the kids take turns reading from “Hot Pot” Jessica does nothing but worry about her turn and her fear of messing up in front of everyone – which she does.

Sure enough, Mr. Martin assigns everyone a part during “Reading Theater” day. This worries Jessica even more but she practices with her dog at home and on the day of the big presentation in front of parents and everyone – she does a great job.

I like Hooray for Reading Day primarily because Jessica’s teacher, Mr. Martin, uses a great reading strategy that parents can use at home with kids during the summer, over holiday breaks, or as a weekend activity. Readers Theater helps kids to build fluency. Fluency is vital to reading comprehension. Fluent readers understand pace and intonation and most importantly – they understand (comprehend) what they are reading.

As Kylene Beers put it, “…students certainly can analyze, synthesize, and evaluate. They can compare and contrast and classify, and they can summarize an event, pulling out the main ideas. They can do the thinking.”

As I mentioned in a previous post – kids like to do things over and over again. Readers Theater asks students to read the same thing many times to build fluency. Practice makes better and getting better leads to excellence.

Readers Theater Resources:
Aaron Shep
Literacy Connections
Readers Theater Book Resource List
More on Kylene Beers

Subversive Poetry for KIDS (that adults will love too)

First, understand that I am a teacher advocate. I taught for a long time and I love the art and science of teaching – it is a passion. But, there have been many hundreds or thousands or perhaps millions of students through the decades turned off to POETRY because of teacher.

Typically this happens because, A) the teacher knows a lot about poetry and loves it but doesn’t know how to teach it, or B) the teacher knows nothing about poetry and so uses the English textbook or reading adoption and so the kids only get those selections. This, my friends, is a crying shame, because the truth is that kids LOVE poetry.

Kids of all ages will gobble poetry up and write some of the most insightful, lyrical work you have eve laid eyes on if given the opportunity, guidance, and passion. I recommend introducing kids to poetry early and often AND it just so happens that using poetry in reading lessons is a great way to get struggling readers to stick with it because poems are typically not long, daunting sections of text loaded like a minefield with words ready to tie the tongue of every unsuspecting reader who isn’t quite capable of mastering every phoneme thrown his or her way. Also, poems for kids are great for grownups too as read-aloud at bedtime or choral readings.

Which brings us to our recommendations for this week:

take me out of the bathtub and other silly dilly songs
written by Alan Katz
illustrated by David Catrow
Margaret K. McElberry Books
ISBN: 0-689-82903-5

Don’t Say That Word
written by Alan Katz
illustrated by David Catrow
Margaret K. McElberry Books
ISBN: 0-689-86971-1

Alan Katz and David Catrow might possibly be the most perfect match of writer and illustrator since Hunter S. Thompson and Ralph Steadman brought us Gonzo journalism with Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. And the beauty of take me out of the bathtub and Don’t Say That Word is that any adult who knows the work of Thompson and Steadman will quickly see the comparison. Manic, subversive, gross, unpleasant, and rebellious, these poems and illustrations for elementary readers might be called Fear and Loathing in Rhyme. Don’t be scared off by the comparison though; these are great books that speak more to the snakes and snails and puppy-dog tails side of childhood as opposed to sweet rhymes about eggs falling to pieces (but even that poem wasn’t about an egg – more on that in a later post). Be prepared for booger and fart jokes – which kids LOVE by the way.

take me out of the bathtub and other silly dilly songs is a re-writing of songs that most kids already know. The title poem, for instance, is sung to the tune of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” but find our protagonist in the bathtub while wearing roller skates and a great visual of his backside as he flies through the air.  “Stinky Stinky Diaper Change” (to the tune of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”) relates the less satisfying parts of being a big brother. Catrow's illustration here does not spare the reader as the baby is flown out the window like a kite only to have his diaper impair the flight of a flock of birds. Other poems include an homage to baby-sitters, the joys of being dirty, and every kid’s bane – cleaning the bedroom.

Katz takes a different tact in Don’t Say That Word. Here, he tells one story in rhyme. Catrow’s cover art shows our hero, think Calvin crossed with Bill the Cat, sitting in the corner savoring a mouthful of soap. As you might guess, the theme here is all those words that kids love to say and hear but which adults are quick to point out – are not nice. We are not talking about cursing here. This is not the seven words you can’t say on television – this is the seven words Mom doesn’t want to hear come our of your mouth:

WARNING: Graphic Content Ahead (eh?)

Booger
Burp
Poop
Butt
Barf
Toilet and
Fart

This is a particularly clever outing for Katz and Catrow, as those seven words never actually appear in the book. Just as our pug-nosed young man is about to say the word his mother yells, “Don’t say that word!” This actually employs an excellent reading strategy for kids to fill in the missing words – similar to a cloze activity.

Catrow’s illustrations here are wonderful and deserve a close inspection because there are visual jokes all over every page. The family dog silently watches the boy’s adventures at and seems to relish the trouble the boy endures for his language. We can only imagine the torment the boy has put the dog through although we get an idea on the back cover as the boy blows his “Pork Radish N Cheese Chip” breath in the dog’s general direction.

Get your kids reading poetry and use poems they can relate to and will excite them.

Remember - read with your kids every day!

Mr. G