Book Review: Fancy Nancy

Fancy Nancy is a series that exposes children to complex vocabulary in an appealing fashion.
We were at Costco last weekend and they had tons of the Fancy Nancy books, so I bought one for Isadora. I got the original Fancy Nancy book, although I will go back for more. :) Not only does she love the book because it has lots of fun illustrations that appeal to her girly side, but I love it because it introduces the idea of using more sophisticated vocabulary in a fun way. Bouquet is fancy for a bunch of flowers, says Fancy Nancy. Fuchsia is fancy for purple. I love it! I've used it to introduce other words to her over the last week - I can't remember all of them - but I do remember talking about how crimson was fancy for red.
But apart from the vocabulary, it has a great storyline that is very appealing to me as a parent. A rare thing with a lot of the books I have to read aloud in the evening (snooorre!!). Click here to see some of the other books in the series.

Stickers for Stories

It's been a while since I last posted anything. Holidays - baaah! Isadora just turned three, so we had a big party for her and she got tons of Hello Kitty stuff (she just adores it all).
One of the the presents she got was a big bag of stickers and some re-usable stickers with scenes to put them on. So much fun! She has been really big into this: "Mom, tell me a story about these..." (She points to the unicorn and the fairy). This was fun for a while until I just plain ran out of stories. So a while back the conversation shifted..

Isadora: Mom, tell me a story
Me: Who are the characters? (Isadora gives me a blank stare) Who is the story about?
Isadora: Kitty and doggy...and frog
Me: What's the problem?
Isadora: Um, the dog steps on the kitty all the time
Me: Okay... (I go on to create some weird story about her plot)

So here is the literacy connection...Isadora is learning about characters, setting, and plot. These are the building blocks of crafting a fiction story. This will also aid in her comprehension of reading stories as she begins to recognize the story structure and will become more receptive to literary elements.
Isadora has "quiet time" in her room (since she kicked her naps to the curb several months back) and I can hear her talking away, creating her own stories. By the way, that example I wrote about - the dog stepping on the kitty all the time - that was a real plot she came up with. Weirdest story ever!

Product: Trader Joe's Alphabet and Number Cookies

Letter cookies are a great way to entice your child to sound out letters and make up goofy words.
My mother brought us a plastic tub of the Trader Joe's Cinnamon Schoolbook Cookies. These have been a lot more fun than I thought. First, Isadora thinks they are a very tasty treat (a vewy tasty and delicious tweat, says Isadora - still can't get those R sounds). But they are also a great way to play around with phonics. I'll grab three or four letters after she is done with lunch and I'll ask her what word we're going to find in our letters. I spread out the letters in front of her, and while I probably would have inhaled them without caring what kind of word they spelled when I was a kid, she actually looks at the letters and tries to make sounds. All the while, dancing excitedly around the kitchen, in anticipation of inhaling them.
"Guh!" says Isadora, pointing to the letter S. Well, I didn't say that she knows how to sounds out words already, but she is making that connection that letters make sounds. "Mmmm," she says, pointing to the letter M. Okay - she knows the sound for M. Good for now. "That says UH," I tell her, pointing to the U. "What word do we have?" "Mooooo!!" she says with excitement! "It's a cow, a cow!" Cookies are now gone and Isadora is talking about something completely unrelated to what we just did, her mouth jammed with cookies.
What I find hopeful in all of that is that Isadora took one of the sounds - the M - and suggested that the word was Moo, a word that begins with M. Nice start! Now we just need to get some alphabet soup!

Making the most of reading aloud

There are entire books written about reading aloud to children and teachers take seminars just about reading aloud. But there are lots of little things that you can do at home without making it feel like they are in school. I'll talk about a few of them:

1. Starting with the cover, make sure you read the author. They'll start to recognize favorite authors after a while, and you can point it out as well. Also, the pictures on the cover at this age are a dead give away for what is going to happen. I always ask Isadora what she thinks the story is going to be about. It's all stuff we do as readers - we grab books and make predictions about what the story is going to be about based on the cover - it's just getting those habits started early.

2. As you read a story, draw their attention to the illustrations and ask them questions. For example, I was just reading a book to Isadora entitled Martha Doesn't Say Sorry. Many of the characters were unhappy with the things that Martha was doing, although the text didn't explicitly say that. So I drew her attention to the pictures, asking Isadora how she thought they were feeling.
Good readers tend draw on multiple sources for comprehension, and check their understanding as go along. As Isadora gets older, the goal is that she will sound out words and then automatically check her understanding to see if she is getting conflicting messages. One way of checking is by reading more text (as most of us do), but we can also look at other sources of information that is available to us, like pictures. If she sounds out the word "jeep" and there is a sheep in the picture, I hope that she will pause, realize that there is conflicting information, and then sound out the word again.

3. If you are reading nonfiction, always read the table of contents (if it has them)! Too often we skip over that and then our children do too. They are a wonderful tool that your child can use as they get older. It helps them understand that non-fiction texts do not have to be read the same way as a fiction text.
I recently purchased the cookbook Pink Princess Tea Parties, which has a wonderful Table of Contents at the front. So before we begin looking through it (and she wants to look at every single page because there are photos of each sugary confection) I have her look at the table of contents and ask her if she wants to look at the drinks, cookies and cakes, sweets and treats, or sandwiches and snacks. She decides and then we go from there. Nonfiction, in any form, is great!

Favorite Author: Jan Brett

Author Jan Brett writes a collection of books that will likely all become favorite reads for both you and your child.
Have you ever read books by Jan Brett? The pages are richly illustrated and they have borders that preview events to come or tell another story that is occurring at the same time. Isadora and I just read Gingerbread Baby, a take on the classic Gingerbread Boy story. It coincided wonderfully with the two of us making gingerbread cookies (that looked nothing like the amazing creations that Jan Brett drew in her book).
The best thing about Jan Brett: her website. If you go to www.janbrett.com you have access to coloring pages, mask printouts, nameplates...you name it! It is an almost dizzying array of activities, all linked to her books and have the same beautiful animal characters.
Isadora's favorites are the masks that you can print out. We printed out the color masks of The Mitten characters and then she got to play with them. While the teacher in me hoped that she would be acting out scenes from the book, she actually had a great time using them for other imaginative scenarios she dreamed up and later took her favorite character mask (the bunny) for long rides in her baby doll stroller. I can't wait to try some of the other activities on Brett's site. Here is the site:

www.janbrett.com

Emails to Daddy

Along the same lines as writing down stories that your children tell you is writing down the letters (or in this case, emails) that they want to send. Isadora and I have sent countless emails to her Grandmother, friends, and her Daddy. We also sent one to ourselves just to see it pop up in the inbox. But the idea is the same: she conveys her message to me while I dutifully type away, telling her occasionally to slow down and then stopping her to read it back. This one was the last we sent to her Dad at work:

I LOVE YOU RODY! I LOVE PINK CRAYONS! THERE'S LOTS OF PINK CRAYONS IN THERE!! AND WIGGLE AND JIGGLE AND YOU BETTER NOT EAT A CHICKEN OR A PUMPKIN! I LOVE YOU PINKERS IN DE DAY. I LOVE YOU TO DANCE IN A ROW, IN A ROW, IN A ROW (SOMETHING, SOMETHING) IN A RUUUUGG! I LOVE YOU LEAF ALL IN A ROW. I LOVE YOU LEAF ALL IN ROW. I LOVE YOU TEETH IN A ROW. I LOVE YOU CROWS. I LOVE YOU WONK! WONKA WITH THE WATER, WRACKER, WITH THE WRACKER, ROCKER, RACK, OOH WOK. (ALL NONSENSE WORDS NOW)
BYE DADDY. WE LOVE YOU.

Can you tell that she was dancing around the living room while she dictated this to me?

Books on CD

Right now Isadora is listening to Strega Nona on a CD while she turns the pages at the tones. Wonderful! It took her a couple times to get the hang of turning the pages on the tones, but she is an expert at it now. I'm keeping a tub of books on CD upstairs for Isadora to listen to - she likes to hear them over and over again. Some of Isadora's favorites are A Weekend With Wendell, Sheila Rae the Brave, and Millions of Cats. I love all the different voices and sound effects, something that helps bring the story to life. And it allows me time to make myself a cup of tea! :)

Our favorite books

Our favorite books from our last trip to the library. The asterick denotes books that Isadora requests that read over and over again (and over, and over, and over...)

We're Going on a Ghost Hunt, by Marcia Vaughan*
Little Bunny Foo Foo (just the song, no author)*
Three Little Kittens, by Paul Galdone
Henny Penny, by Paul Galdone
What do you know, by Lorinda Bryan Cauley
Muncha, Muncha, Muncha, by Candace Fleming*
Farmer Duck, by Martin Waddell
Max's Dragon Shirt, by Rosemary Wells*
Are You My Mother?, by P.D. Eastman
When Sophie Gets Angry, Really, Really Angry, by Molly Bang
Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs, by Byron Barton*
Tops & Bottoms, by Janet Stevens
Flip, Flap, Fly, by Phyllis Root
I Know An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly, by Mary Ann Hoberman
Max Cleans Up, by Rosemary Wells
Martha Speaks, by Susan Meddaugh
Where's My Teddy?, by Jez Alborough
The Cat in the Hat, by Dr. Seuss
Minerva Louise and the Red Truck, by Janet Morgan Stoeke
Pigs Aplenty, Pigs Galore, by David McPhail
Chato's Kitchen, by Gary Soto*

More on dictated stories

Bridge (1989) offers the following guidelines for the dictation process:

1. Students should be able to read back the story, so it shouldn't be too long (Isadora tends to refuse to do this right now, but I read it back to her).
2. If possible, wait until the student's thought is complete, then record exactly what the student says (I have to slow Isadora down to one sentence at a time because she tends to spill it all out in one breath).
3. Say each word as you write it, asking the student to watch (I sound out the words as I write them).
4. As you record, provide some reading instruction appropriate for this student (So I try to correct some of her words, pronunciation, etc. - but not too much! I want it to be fun and if I do much correcting it will change that).
5. Read the story aloud for the student, encouraging students to join in as they are able (Isadora is better able to "read" back one or two word sentences - "The End" is her favorite).
6. Have the student read the selection independently when she or he is able (This may take a while!).

The theory behind dictated stories

So why am I writing down Isadora's stories? The dictated story has its roots in the Language Experience Approach to reading (Allen, 1976; Stauffer, 1969, 1980). To quote from the text Assessment and Instruction of Reading and Writing Difficulty (Lipson & Wixson, 2003),

"As a beginning reading method, LEA promotes student awareness of the relationship between oral and written language by having students produce a 'language experience story.' This story then become the reading material that is used for the delivery of instruction. Because this eliminates problems of a mismatch between the student's language and the reading materials, the technique has been widely used for very beginning learners..."

The goal is that Isadora will eventually read back the stories to me, but right now she just likes to have me write down the stories, have me re-read them, and then giggle about them.

Shhh! I'm going to tell a story!

This is how Isadora begins each story that she tells - making sure that she has my undivided attention. I have started writing down her stories as she tells them, letting her see how I write the letters and sounding out the words, and telling her, "slow down!" as I try to keep up with the disjointed little bits that she is quickly spilling out. I leave a blank space at the top of the page for her to draw a picture, but as of now she is not interested in drawing out the story and insists that I draw instead. I have resisted for the most part but I drew in something today...a stick figure man and a sheep. Want to hear the story? It has three parts, and if I were more of a techy I'd scan it, but here it is:


Part I
Little Bo Peep has not found his sheep. The wolf is his grandma but he's not and Little Bo Peep hits the wolf on the head! The End

Part II
Little Bo Peep bonked his sheep on the head. He saw three sheep. The End

Part III
Little Bo Peep has not found his sheep. He found his sheep! And was happy. The End


As you can see, my daughter is mixing is mixing Little Bo Peep and Little Red Riding Hood. Also, Little Bo Peep is apparently a boy since that has remained consistent throughout her stories.

I usually start by re-reading the stories she has created before (and she grins and giggles) and then we write down her new story on a fresh page. I correct some of her grammar as we go along. So for example, today Isadora said, "Little Bo Pee haven't found..." I said (and wrote down), "Oh, so Little Bo Peep has not found." When I did this she stopped and corrected me. "No, Little Bo Peep HAVEN'T found." And I said, "Oh, he hasn't found?" She paused and then we continued the story.

We'll see where the story goes...

What We're Reading

The big hit of the day for books is Chato's Kitchen, by Gary Soto. The things that Isadora loves are the Spanish accents that you have use while reading the book. The major drawback of the book are the Spanish accents that you have to use while reading all the spanish words. Kidding aside, it is a great book and has fabulous writing for a book that a preschooler can get into. One of my favorites: "He shivered the mice from his back and they dropped like gray fruit." Wow - can you not picture that?!! Isadora can't really get into those descriptions yet, but I believe it will help her build an appreciation of good writing. How can that NOT rub off on you?

In other news, Erik went to some cheap store that is by his work and got Isadora some cheap plastic dinosaurs. She was a little taken aback by the scary expression on the T-Rex, but insisted on bringing it to her bed. We happened to have the book Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs, by Byron Barton, and so we read that aloud to her. The writing is really simple and the pictures are bright and clear. Isadora made a connection between her own dinosaur and the book: "Look, my dinosaur has plates!" Wellll, her dinosaur didn't really have plates, but it was exciting to see her make the connection between the book and her own little plastic dinosaur.