I'm sure you are familiar with children's book author Mo Willems of Knuffle Bunny and the Pigeon and Elephant and Piggie fame. I was too. We love the Knuffle Bunny series but while we enjoyed Elephant and Piggie, we weren't in love with them. Until now.
This past weekend, having taken four Elephant and Piggie books out of the library, we began reading them in a new way. They are perfectly designed for acting out - they consist solely of dialogue and each character's lines are located in a different-colored bubble, making it easy to identify who is talking. My daughter would pick up a book and, while it was still closed (so she couldn't see who had more words to read), pick which character she wanted to be. When she drew a character with more lines, she groaned, but gamely read on. The next thing I knew, we had read all four books. Success! I have others in the series on hold at the library and, given Willems' prolificacy (hey, dictionary.com says it's a word, as are prolificness and prolificity), we should have more to look forward to soon. In the meantime, do you know of any other children's books that are primarily dialogue? What does your child like to read aloud?
Here in Australia we have two series of beginning reader type series of books where it is easy to read parts. They are called Girlz Rock and Boys Rule and each book has two girls or two boys parts. My good Year 1 and struggling Year 2s love reading them with a parent. These books come from Macmillan publishers and while they are not as good as Elephant and Piggie they do have more text and serve a purpose.
ReplyDeleteAlthough my son loves reading he does not like reading aloud. I've let it go for the most part, even though his teachers have said it would be a good idea to encourage the skill. I have, however, had some success with getting him to read the dialogue in (don't laugh) The Magic School Bus books.
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