‘What Makes a Rainbow?’ – A Reading Circle Find

I just ran across the most delightful book for babies and toddlers. It’s been around for a while, so I don’t know what took me so long to cross paths with it.

“What Makes a Rainbow? A Magic Ribbon Book” is one of the books that my 3-year-old nephew brought with him when family gathered for a post-Christmas reunion. The book was lying on a couch, so I flipped it open out of curiosity. The smile was instantaneous. I know a good book when I see one. What a fun introduction to reading, I mused. It’s also a good way to teach colors.

Written by Betty Ann Schwartz and illustrated by Dona Turner, the book features colorful artwork and a real string rainbow that magically grows each time a page is turned. If that weren’t cute enough, the last page includes a pop-up rainbow – which will definitely catch the eye of a pre-reader.

I think this would make a perfect book to share in a daycare reading circle or when a grandparent wants some snuggle time with a grandchild. Because the shiny strings and pop-up might get mangled, I would suggest that you not toss this board book in the basket with the rest of the toys. I’d save it for special supervised reads.

I discovered another set of board books in a little children’s boutique in town. They were first produced in The Netherlands, but are now published by San Francisco’s Chronicle Books. I decided the “Little” Finger Puppet Books would make a sweet introduction to story time, so I got enough to give to the new moms that I mentor. (Sh-h-h! They are a surprise.)

In each book, a soft three-dimensional finger puppet pops through a hole on each page. The books are visually stimulating and offer tactile appeal.  I counted 17 different versions in this book series. “Little Puppy,” “Little Bunny” and “Little Giraffe” are particularly cute ones. The books are pint-sized and sturdy, making them a good candidate for hands-on “reading.”

While Big Universe can’t offer finger-puppets or magic string books, it does offer a huge variety of online picture books – some of them animated and with audio, too. The books are organized by age, topic, language, and reading and grade levels. If you want the book for your permanent collection at home or school, Big Universe makes that easy with links to the publishers’ websites.

 Big Universe offers a free 14-day trial of its online library, which includes thousands of premium publisher books, member-written stories, and an Author Tool to write and illustrate a book.

UPDATE:(March 16, 2011) My nephew’s honorable mention in this Big Universe blog garnered the attention of Lee Becknell of Piggy Toes Press, who invited him to be featured as the Fan of the Week this week. You’ll see him pictured on her blog, reading ”What Makes a Rainbow” – one  of his favorite picture books. Keep reading, Michael!

Developing Your Preschooler’s Vocabulary Through Read Alouds

We’ve all heard that when children are young, their minds are like sponges.  We want to fill their brain with background knowledge and vocabulary so that they may easily use this knowledge when necessary.  Reading aloud is an excellent way to help build your child’s vocabulary.  Your child will certainly learn new words just by listening and through every day conversation, but here are a few tips to help build your child’s vocabulary explicitly through read alouds:

• Begin with high-frequency sight words when reading with preschoolers.  These are the words that appear frequently in writing, but are less common in every day conversation.  Children should be able to say the word on sight.  These words are essential to vocabulary development.
• Use the pictures to help your child make connections to word meanings.  Point to the picture in the text when reading an unknown word.
• If you come across a word when reading, and you aren’t sure if your child knows what it means, ask him.  This is a perfect opportunity to provide quick vocabulary instruction.  A one to two sentence explanation may be sufficient enough.
• If your child still has difficulty with vocabulary words, consider creating pictures (either drawing them or printing them online) to help make connections between words and their meanings.  Also consider labeling items in your house (banister, stairs, fireplace, chair, etc.)
• Word learning is enhanced through repeated readings of text, which provides opportunities to revise and refine word meanings (Kindle, 2009; Carey, 1978).  So, even though you may get tired of reading the same story over and over again, your child is actually morphing through several stages of word knowledge as you do: from never heard it, to sounds familiar, to it has something to do with, to well known (Kindle, 2009; Dale, 1965).

Most important of all: don’t be afraid to read books that have large words in them.  Fancy Nancy is a great series of books for girls that provide explicit vocabulary instruction through the story.  I know a few preschool girls who use words like “exquisite” and “furious” – and they use them correctly!

This post was inspired by: Vocabulary Development During Read Alouds: Primary Practices by Karen J. Kindle (The Reading Teacher, 2009).

Dawn Little (aka Links to Literacy) also blogs at www.teachingwithpicturebooks.wordpress.com where she provides educators with picture book lessons based on comprehension strategies and the Six Traits of Writing.  In addition, she blogs at www.literacytoolbox.wordpress.com where she provides educators and parents with tips and tools to enhance the literacy lives of children.  She is the founder and owner of Links to Literacy, a company dedicated to providing interactive literacy experiences for children and families.  Find out more at www.linkstoliteracy.com