What My Child Is Reading – July 02, 2009

First of all, let me proudly announce the winner in our house. We checked out The Little Engine that Could before, but Anna was not that interested. Now she was completely mesmerized by the story and gleefully predicted how “not good” engines are not going to help the train. Since I didn’t grow up on the classic images from this story, I personally found new art in this particular edition a lot more interesting than original art, especially the drawings of the clown. It also gave us some good discussions about arrogance and believing in yourself. Anna paid great attention every time (probably 50 times by now!) we read this book. Interestingly, she asked the same  question that I also asked myself – what happened to an original engine of toy train, and how The Little Engine got it out of the train if the engine was broken.

I love the series of Jane Belk Moncure – the best proof that phonics can be fun. Anna really likes these books too. Since we are very much over learning the alphabet, I pick them up in a random sequence. This week we read My “a” Sound Box, My “h” Sound Box, and Short “a” and Long “a” Play a Game. They are fun, short and lead to some extension activities – such as finding more words with this sound. They also allow to focus not just on nouns, but on other sentence elements.

Since Anna liked Nancy Tafuri books in the past, I took this one from the library. She liked it OK, but only for about 10 readings – far from record in our house. On the other hand, she was choosing it for bedtime stories. Usually Anna only chooses extremely cheerful stories for bedtime. This book would be good if someone is into thematic learning for I Am Special theme. When I am reading to Anna, a sign of her engagement is usually the number of question she asks or the extension plays she invents. Unfortunately, she didn’t ask many questions here, only about beavers and prairie dogs, two animals that she wasn’t familiar with. I think that the book was a little too basic for her. On the other hand, she started telling me, I will love you forever and ever and always - it’s really sweet to hear this phrase coming from your toddler that just a few minutes ago threw a tantrum not wanting to go to the bath

And now let me introduce “a flop of the week”. After one reading Anna absolutely refused to touch this book. Apparently, the picture of an octopus scared her, and even though he is a positive character in the story she didn’t want anything to do with it. This was disappointing, because I was hoping to do some neat fish art projects based on this book. So if anyone knows another good book about fish, feel free to drop me a comment.

To find out what others are reading this week, visit a Well Read Child.