Over Thanksgiving break, as is my custom, I took each of my nieces out to a movie of their choosing (and sometimes mine if I really despise the choice they've made). Emily picked Disney's new movie, Tangled. That was fine with me. It looked cute and I wanted to see it. Needless to say, it was great. It was funny, it was clever, and the music was enjoyable. After dinner and a trip to the bookstore for her to get the latest book in the Wimpy Kid series, Wimpy Kid: The Ugly Truth, she and I had a great "date night."
That night, I wondered if we could read the Rapunzel story. So we looked through the bookshelves and Emily and I found a huge collection of Children's Stories in a red leather bound cover with random color pictures in it. It didn't have the Rapunzel story in it but she asked me to read to her from it so I did. One of the first nights, I read, "Little Red Riding Hood," it wasn't my favorite version but it would do. My favorite version is by Charles Perrault because of the moral at the end of his story for young girls never to talk to strangers and about how the most charming "wolves" (men) can be the most dangerous. And another night we read, "The Three Bears," and I read the stories in typical Aunt Sonia style which means that I created a unique voice for each character and occasionally added in made up details about Emily, her mother (my sister, Michelle), or her sister (my niece Kayla) to make her giggle. When I read, "Little Red," the wolf was her mother in a gruff wolf voice and Red Riding Hood was a sweet little Southern-sounding belle. And even at ten years old, Emily giggled with glee as I added in my little tidbits to make it funny and to see if she was paying attention.
On another night we read, "Hansel and Gretel." I asked her if she knew the story and she said, "sure I do, it was on Disney." In other words, some Disney TV show like The Sweet Life of Zack and Cody, did a parody version of "Hansel and Gretel" and therefore, she was familiar with the characters and basic story line. But when I got to the part where Hansel tried to use the bread crumbs he had left to find his way home and I read, "When the moon appeared they got up, but they could not find any crumbs, for the many thousands of birds that fly about in the woods and in the fields had pecked them up," Emily gasped in shock.
Moral of the story: If you have a young person in your life, buy them a huge collection of children's stories and folktales and read it to them often.
LESSON IDEAS: I occasionally read children's picture books to my sophomores in an effort to show them how fun they can be and because I like them myself. I would like for them to understand how important it is children to be read to. I had hoped to help them prepare a favorite children's book to read to a child at Thanksgiving or Christmas time this year. But that time has passed. I am still not going to give up on this goal.
Earlier this year, I shared with them the idea of Rambunctious Reading which I found at a wonderful blog entitled, The Reading Workshop. Unfortunately, the original post is no longer available but I did find the lesson at the author's wikispace by the same title. The lesson has students practice reading rambunctiously from various excerpts from children's picture books. My students enjoyed the lesson but it WAS a stretch for them. Many of my struggling readers, don't really have a strong narrative voice in their heads when they read silently. So the mission was two-fold: to encourage them to practice reading out loud and also to help them "hear" a text the way it is intended to be read. This will take more practice on my part.
To encourage more work with this, I have told my students that if they read 25 children's picture books this year, I will count that as one "book of the month." They liked the idea but I need to do more work with them on how to read a children's picture book, what to look for, how to analyze it, and how to evaluate it. And then I will need to help them bridge over and transfer this work to share with a young reader at home.
