While at the library this week, there was another child in there, I don’t know what grade in school she is in, but her grandma had her there. She had mentioned to her grandma that the teacher told her to only get first grade readers, and to not have other people reading to her anymore. I was busy looking at books and came around the corner, to see Selena sitting with one of the girl’s books reading it to her. Selena handed her back the book and said, “You can learn to read too.” Truly this left me with some mixed emotions, proud of my granddaughter’s abilities, but a deepened sorry that this other child was struggling with what seemed to be so easy for Selena. 
Mouse Makes Words by Kathryn Heling and Deborah Hembrook is a great beginning reader about how we can start with one word, remove a letter add another one and make a new word. While I would like to say that Selena really enjoyed this book, I must admit it didn’t follow the same rules we use for this idea. We have used the “Slide and Drop” to make new words, so throughout this book Selena kept telling us “No, it is slide and drop.” This would be a perfect book though to reinforce any phonics program to demonstrate how we can take the word cat and change it to make hat.
Sitting Duck by Jackie Urbanovic was a cute adventure in babysitting. A duck agrees to babysit a puppy, now how hard can that be. The puppy gets into all sorts of trouble but the duck is right there to see that the puppy is safe. We all laughed when the puppy’s owner returned to pick up the puppy, everyone that got involved with this adventure was so confident that everything went great, while the house told a totally different story. Now how much trouble can one puppy be? This definitely was a fun story and has great illustrations.
Together by Hazel Hutchins illustrations by Alice Priestley is a great book for young children. It teaches many concepts about what keeps things together from buttons, zippers, velcro, but the most valuable concept it teaches at the end of the book is what keeps a family together, even through times that they are apart for work, school or play. Selena enjoyed the fact that she could read this book very independently, but loved that hugs really do help to keep families together.
I am linking this to Mouse Grows Mouse Learns.
I have some of the others in the duck series, I'll have to see if we can find that one because it looks cute and the others have been a huge hit.
ReplyDeleteAnd the first book looks like a great one to get as well.
Thanks for joining WMCIR! The story about library is pretty neat! Your second book reminded me to get another book from the series - Anna enjoyed Duck at the Door (which, I believe, starts the series) quite a bit.
ReplyDeleteThat last one looks darling. And, we haven't read any of the duck books, yet - I'll keep an eye out for them.
ReplyDeleteVisiting your blog from What My Child is Reading. What a special thing to be raising your granddaughter. Looks like you have a sweet relationship. I like your book choices!
ReplyDeleteAs for the beginning comment, I think what bothers me most is that the teacher told the girl to limit herself to only first grade readers and not have people read to her. What kind of teacher would say that?
ReplyDeleteI'm with Brimful Curiosities. I read this a while ago before we went out shopping and I couldn't stop thinking about it. Like hubby said, if a child finds something that interests them at a different level they should be able to read it. And what kind of teacher says not to have people read to her. It's been shown to be so important to read aloud to your child. I would love to know what the rest of the teachers in that school teach. And of course that is why I am glad we are homeschooling.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, thank you for the introduction to the Mouse Makes Words book. It sounds great and I have it on hold. What exactly is "slide and drop."
We have Mouse Makes Words. Haven't read it in a while, but my 4-year-old loved it when we first got it. We'll have to check out the other books.
ReplyDeleteThe teacher's comment is disturbing. I plan to read to my children for many more years to come.
It's great that Selena can verbalize how she makes words. It's always so exciting when they can tell us what is going on in their little minds.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad (as you probably were too) that my kid doesn't have that teacher. Sheesh, I still enjoy listening to others read aloud. I def. wouldn't have been ready to give that up in the first grade!