Get ready for an expedition through the cloud forests of Central America, discovering thriving insects from eight inch butterflies, battling beetles, munching praying mantids or jewel scarabs, the gems of the cloud forest. Written in the form of a journal, Randal Barnes’ recorded observations teach about eight exotic insects, and offer cardboard models to assemble from 58 pieces. Open the book to the pages about an insect and you are greeted with a visual feast of maps where the insects are found, beautiful color illustrations, diagrams for model assembly, and closeups of wing scales, camoflage, or eggs cases. Delivered with small bits of content reinforced by visual pieces, this guide works well with children who have a shorted attention span, are visual learners, or need text broken up into smaller chunks to keep them motivated to read and learn. An “active” book, The Field Guide to Insects, keeps kids engaged and teaches at the same time.
Kids love the models which might require some parent involvement, depending on the age of the child. After a little boy finished his model he ran to tell his mom, “You won’t believe all these pieces in one small book!” Then he asked me if he could take his model to school tomorrow.” That’s quite an endorsement.
Sherry Artemenko, MA-CCC, is a speech-language pathologist with more than 35 years experience and founder of Playonwords.com. The opinions expressed in this review are solely those of the author. “The Field Guide to Insects” was provided for review by Silver Dolphin.
After family laughs, snuggles and kisses, going to bed alone in the dark is a little scary. Reading God is With Me Through the Night, arms your little one with spiritual principles in the face of fear.
Pairing a simple sentence, “I start to feel afraid,” with animals illustrating the same emotion–a little dog looking forlorn in the dark–each page builds on the reassuring spiritual truth, God is always with me, “Just like when God kept Daniel safe from the lions.”
Encouraging your child to declare God’s comfort and assurance, the animals insist, “I say out loud, ‘I am loved!’ or “I roar like a tiger, ‘I am safe!’” Just enough language for a toddler or preschooler to master, each short statement comforts a child, reinforced by a Bible verse, “Do not fear for I am with you. Isaiah 41:10
What to do:
Toddlers:
- Name the animals and the sounds they make, describe their actions and feelings–snuggling lions, nuzzling seals.
- Relate to God’s creation.
- Repeat the comforting phrases: “I am loved,” “I am safe!” “God is with me through the night!” so your child can remember them.
Preschoolers and early elementary ages:
- Describe the pictures using rich vocabulary.
- Relate the pictured activities to your child–we played in the snow like the polar bears, our family likes to cuddle too.
- Relate the emotions to your child–When do you feel afraid? What noises are scary? What do you do when you are scared? Model sharing by expressing when you as a parent are scrared and how you rely on God to protect and comfort you. Do you sing a song or repeat a verse?
- Have fun shouting out the comforting phrases: “I am not afraid” and “I am safe.”
- Encourage emerging literacy skills–point out the words of the short phrases as you say them, “I am loved.” and “God” that is differentiated in bold color.
- Memorize the Bible verse together.
Strap on your boots and rain gear to venture through the entangled layers of the rain forest–discovering their inhabitants, habitat and prey, feeling the sheer immensity of the jungle. Clearly dividing the forest layers from the river, forest floor, understory, and canopy to the emergents, this book draws the reader up through the levels of foliage with just enough facts and lush illustrations.
In an age where books compete with fast-paced technology for a child’s attention, “Rain Forest” reinforces the power of an engaging, interactive book. Kids explore the layers of the rain forest in five pop-up panoramas, including the transparent, three dimensional layered view of the Amazon River. Scout an animal in its natural habitat, and then check the 3-D key below to gather facts about your creature. Children I read this to were so excited by the Circle of Life that they asked to hear about the “secondary customers” (consumers) again! The grand recycling food chain gave them order in this complicated ecosystem.
With a new emphasis on encouraging elementary school children to read non-fiction, “Rain Forest” is a captivating addition to a child’s library, capturing the enormity of the jungle’s influence in intricate detail–providing a home for more than half of known animal species and stretching for over 1,400 miles on either side of the equator. This book can be read by a child to discover and learn or used by educators to encourage children to collect facts, write paragraphs, explain the interdependence of forest layers, food chains and ecosystems or answer inferential questions about what species survive where and why.
So set aside Sponge Bob and the Super Heroes for a moment and immerse a child in the teeming forest of learning about our world.
Research shows that babies love the human face, with all its unique angles, light and contrasting shadows, moving parts and eyes to engage.. Celebrating the simplicity of baby’s day–sleeping, kissing, giggling and playing peek-a-boo–this delightful oversized board book, Baby, Boo! features plump baby faces to match his activities. Using rhyme, rhythm, and short text, the book introduces a playful line, “wakey, wakey, sleepy baby,” while your baby explores the matching bigger than life face. Little ones reach out to the faces as if to discover a new friend. A surprise interactive peek-a-BOO brings on the laughter as well as it’s YOU, in a kid shaped mirror at the end.
To encourage language beyond reading this book to your baby, describe the pictures using expanded vocabulary such as his eyes are shut, he stretched his arm, puckered his lips, planted a kiss, laughed, listened or hid. Imitate and describe the faces as your baby touches the pictures.
Five Little Ducks disappear, one by one, ignoring mom’s call to come back to her Quack! A concise number book of subtraction, interactive touch and feel, rhythmic rhyme and bold graphics leads your baby through the circular cut-outs to reveal remaining ducks and flowers to count. Babies follow the adorable ducks, rocking to the rhythm of the verse, soaking up the rhymes and grabbing the cutouts to turn the pages. Revealing an array of concepts, this baby book takes your little one from her earliest days as a newborn listening to the rhythm of language, through her first year and a half, hearing rhymes, counting ducks and flowers, recognizing numbers, and finishing repeated phrases. This baby book has staying power with plenty of learning for many months.
Through simple blotches of color, author-illustrator Kathryn Otoshi creates a gang of personalities cleverly tied to their hues–quiet Blue, outgoing Orange, bright Green, outgoing Purple and hot-head Red. Don’t be thrown off my the apparent simplicity of her drawings and storyline. This book is a winner, rich in language, metaphors, concepts and life lessons.
Blue is content with himself until Red comes along, announcing, “Red is hot, Blue is not.” Blue flattens into a puddle of color, feeling diminished by this bully. His friends rally around to comfort Blue, but can’t seem to step up to Red and tell her to STOP! Undaunted, Red’s blob gets bigger and bigger, picking on the whole gang as they flatten, feeling “a little blue.” The number “1″ comes to their rescue and stands up to Red, refusing to back down, demonstrating the courage to face a bully. His bravery was contagious as each color declared their intent to stand up to Red, and became a tinted number. Each colored number wanted to count against Red, who started to diminish as his bravado was challenged. In a final twist of kindness, the gang called out to Red and invited him to “count” too, coming full circle into a heartwarming tale of inclusion.
This clever book can entertain and teach at many levels and ages. To the young preschooler, the story line reinforces colors and numbers, while to the older child, it launches a discussion of intimidation, resolving problems, and inclusion. Recognizing metaphors, discussing the use of size and shapes to represent concepts (sad, defeated, bossy, etc,) and relating the story to a child’s experience are recognized using this story to start the discussion.
Born with eyes that look opposite ways, Jenny Sue is out of the ordinary, but thank heavens for her mom who loves her child and turns different into “creative!” Exploring the difficulties of a disability–kids laughing, calling names, and pointing, getting into trouble and enduring doctor’s appointments–first time author Jenny Sue Kostecki-Shaw adds a clever spin to the dilemma of living with misaligned eyes called “strabismus.”
Her travelin’ eye takes her to new places, navigating through adventures of numbers and colors. Think of what elements she would miss, had she not had a travelin’ eye to remind her to “smell the flowers, kiss the butterflies, and read the clouds.” With much apprehension, Jenny Sue visits the opthamologist, Dr.Dave, who declares her eye lazy and in need of waking up! He sent her home with big, thick glasses and a patch to cover her strong eye so the lazy one would strengthen. The author-illustrator takes us on a visual tour of what it is like to see through one weak eye. Floating letters on the blackboard set against blurry backgrounds make navigating Jenny Sue’s world challenging. After this brave little girl confides in her mom about her dilemma, her creative mom gets busy making “fashion patches,” a new one for each day. Debuted to a classroom of peers, the patches are a hit. No sooner has she become a “patch” star, then Jenny Sue gets the news that her lazy eye has woken up. No need for patches, now she just sports one-of-a-kind glasses.
The real Jenny Sue, author and illustrator Jenny Sue Kostecki-Shaw, has written this endearing autobiographical story from a child’s perspective. Maybe that is why she doesn’t miss a step–what it feels and looks like to have a disability, how people react, what the steps are to get help from the doctor, and how to cleverly face being different to become included. Her punchy illustrations in collage bring a cheerful element to a challenging situation.
I highly recommend this book for parents, teachers and therapists to talk about being different, feelings, reactions, and including others. Use the story to encourage text to self and text to life comparisons. Have you ever been made fun of or been called a name because of being different? How did it feel? How should we treat kids that are different? Were you ever afraid to go to the doctor? How can we celebrate differences? Whenever you talk about the book in addition to reading it, you are building a child’s language skills as well as social skills as you model talking through situations for positive, creative solutions.
Speech Pathologists, by profession need to be creative people, when working with children to build their speech and language skills, making the sessions so much fun that their little clients have no idea they are “learning.” In the case of I Can Do That and I Can Say That by Dr. Suzy Lederer, a professor of speech-language pathology with over 25 years experience, these inviting, educational, research-based, books were both authored and illustrated by speech-language pathologists.
Simple, clear stories aimed at children learning beginning vocabulary, gestures, sounds and language, these books use the strategies that speech pathologists seek in a book. Lists of target nouns and verbs, their corresponding signs, short rhyming lines, repetition of vocabulary, invitations to imitate in gesture and word, simple drawings and layout to limit distractions, bold-faced single words to encourage pre-literacy, and a quick pace, contribute to the magic of these stories. As therapists, we must constantly adjust our materials to meet the needs and interests of our little clients, providing stimulating and refreshing content. I Can Do That and I Can Say That invite, amuse and teach the child in a useful context.
Children are drawn in by the story’s simplicity and can’t help but join in the repetition of core vocabulary while pretending to eat, drink, hug, or kiss. My little testers enjoyed the kiss the most, anticipating and slobbering on the glossy page with delight. Answering yes and no questions and practicing greetings are included in the stories too.
Research shows that play and reading fosters language development in children. These books encouraged interaction and play, as an active 19 month-old sat on my lap through both stories in a book, spontaneously saying the sounds while looking at the animals quack, moo, meow, and woof. Acting out the verbs, brought in an element of pretend play, encouraging gestures and higher language function.
As an added feature, an interactive CD-ROM for your PC is included in both English and Spanish.
One mom declared these hard covered books so nice that they belonged in “supervised reading.” When I asked her to clarify she said, “I wouldn’t leave them out for him to rip the pages. They belong in the special Mommy and Me section of his bookshelf!” She clearly enjoyed reading the books as much as her son delighted in hearing them.
Being grumpy is a lot of work. Mr. Fish can’t seem to be cheered up by his convincing pals, Ms Clam, Mr. Jelly (Fish), Mrs. Squid or Mr. Eight (legged octopus). In spite of the efforts by his best-intended buddies, this dreary, sulking fish is convinced he is doomed to a life of mope. An unexpected visitor appears to plant a kiss on our prince to get this grump out of his slump. This charming tale, The Pout-Pout Fish, is filled with strong vocabulary, rhythm and rhyme with stanzas to be sung with your little one.
Tips to Build Language and Literacy:
Model putting words to your emotions throughout your daily experiences. “I’m frustrated, I can’t get this lid open” or “I’m tired and grumpy. I need a nap.” “Please be patient, I can’t help you right now.” Identify and name emotions in stories that you read aloud to your child. “The little girl is selfish—always wanting her own way” or “Grandma is disappointed in her behavior.” Brainstorm words that describe the main character and see how many you can list. After reading a story to a first grade class, I collected fourteen words to describe the “bossy, impolite, ungrateful” little girl. Our little pout pout fish is “glum,” “mopey,” “dreary,” with an “unattractive trait.”
Point out repeated words that are isolated in the text, “Blub, Bluuuub, and Bluuuuub!” Your child will begin to associate the sound with the letter as you stretch out the word and even “read” the word next time you encounter that page.
No child gets bored with this kaleidoscope of colorful objects, animals and people gathered into categories by theme–getting dressed, visiting the farm, making music, or playing on the beach. Each category in Maisy’s Amazing Big Book of Words is introduced with a full-size picture and flap to invite your preschooler into a world bursting with 300 words that are related by theme. Whether your child is at the stage of pointing to hear you label the picture, naming the illustrations or narrating a little sentence, she will delight in this feast of words, all relating to a little one’s experience.
Take the time to name the pictures, describe them, “the three swimming ducklings,” and talk about how they all belong to a group–things we use on a rainy day, animals in the sea, food in the kitchen, or objects for bath time. Naming the category builds your child’s language as she learns to group words by their use or function. Talk about what we do with the items–”We dry off with a towel,” or “we wash with soap,” or “we float the duck.” Talking about the function of objects, helps your child link concepts and builds language skills.
