Pesky Words

I walked into a first grade classroom to pick up one of my students for speech and another child, who’d graduated from my program the year before, hurried over and said, “When do I get to go back to speech?”

“You don’t need my help any longer—you sound great!”

He’d met all of his goals the year before and his only remaining error was with the “r” sound. His speech was typical for a child of his age so I dismissed him from speech therapy in his kindergarten year.

“But I need help with the word, ‘bugga’.”

Oh, oh—I couldn’t understand him. “With what?” (Maybe he did need help.)

“Bugga.”

He didn’t give me additional cues, just that one pesky word.

“You mean burger?” I asked. “Like a hamburger?”

“No. You know, ‘bugga’.” And to help me out, he stuck his finger up his nose.

“Oh, I see. The “r” is giving you trouble.” I’d hate for him to go through life unable to pronounce that word!

He’s a little bit young to start working on “r” sounds, but it never hurts to bombard him with the correct pronunciation, especially when he gets to hear it in a story. I recently read a book that is a perfect match for him. 

It has “r” sounds on every page. Here is a small sample,

            In the jungle, toucans snooze.

            Also sloths and cockatoos.

            Ignoring snoring striped hyenas,

            Monkeys dream they’re ballerinas.

                        But not Fred.

(The “r” is not enlarged in the book.)

EVERYBODY SLEEPS (BUT NOT FRED), written and illustrated by Josh Schneider will make a nice addition to his classroom as well as my own.

My students worked enthusiastically on one of the early Common Core State Standards (CCSS): “recognize and produce rhyming words” (Reading: Foundational Skills K.2) as they listened to the text and tried creating a few rhymes of their own. They worked on another CCSS when they “describe(d) the relationship between illustrations and the story in which they appear (Reading: Literature K.7).

The illustrations captivated them—pigs nodding off “in stinky rows” and sheep lying “in a wooly heap,” but their favorite was the anteater with his long probing tongue.

They came up with ideas for that tongue I would never have thought of, but my student who struggled with his “r” sounds would have appreciated their insights! They were certain that tongue would come in handy to get rid of . . . well, I’d rather not say but think of that pesky word above.

Read Across America & Take a Wild Ride With a Book

Books are flying off the shelves at Redwood Elementary this week. My speech students are so hungry for books that I’ve created a checkout system in the speech room so they can enjoy my personal collection. Read Across America is having its impact!

Our librarian, Kelly Sutton, has brought readers in from around our school and community to read stories to our students. The kids loved having our secretaries, nurse, and principal read with them and imagine their excitement when a local police officer took a turn in the reader’s chair! One special reader was Kelly’s own father.

The classroom teachers have been busy with Dr. Seuss activities; Lorie Wardlaw’s first grade class mixed up a delicious batch of green eggs and ham.

while Marcia Douglas’s first graders created green smoothies.  

  

I missed the final product but the kids assured me, when this fruit went into the blender and they added kale, they had a lovely green drink. 

Kathleen Murray’s kindergarteners lined our hallway with their Seuss inspired artwork.

   

           

I see future illustrators in this group!

On Wednesday, I had a chance to read to Ms. Kafin’s kindergarteners.

Mrs. Kafin getting into the spirit of things

I found a perfect book for the occasion: Surf’s Up by Kwame Alexander, illustrated by Daniel Miyares.

When a book can hold a surfing dude captive and keep him from riding the waves, you know it has power. And that is just what happens in this story. Two frogs named Bro and Dude, head to the beach with a book and board – a surfboard that is. As Bro reads, he can’t contain his excitement, crying “Wowie Kazowie” and “Booyah! They found the whale again.” His enthusiasm pulls Dude right into the story of Moby Dick and they ride this adventure like they ride the ocean waves. The kids were captivated by this riotous adventure and I must admit, I was too.

I hope Read Across America was a success in schools and libraries around our country, and I hope children everywhere experience the wild ride a good book can offer.

The Ghostly Night in the Speech Room

You may have noticed I haven’t been posting much for the past year. Instead, I’ve been busy working on other writing projects. I was nudged to get back to my blog when I received a digital review copy of the book I featured in my last post. Thank you, Marissa, for sending Calling All Cars my way! I’d forgotten how much I enjoy posting about books and engaging my students in the process.

Now that the review bug has bitten me again, I’ll be on the lookout for new books to share with my students and I’ll pass along our recommendations. While I wait for the next batch to roll in I thought I’d introduce one of my own that is frequently requested by my students, The Ghostly Night, written and illustrated by myself, Jeanette W. Stickel.

I wrote this story to give my students an engaging way to practice their “g” sounds. I had no idea how successful it would be. The kids continue to ask for this book even after mastering their “g” sounds.

In The Ghostly Night Kristy can’t get to sleep.

“The wind rattled her window. The full moon threw grasping shadows across her bedroom wall. They swayed with the rhythm of the wind.”

Before long, Kristy calls her mother,

“Mom!” she cried. “There’s a   g  -  g   -  g   ghost in my room.”

She calls again when the wind howls, when a branch scrapes her bedroom window, and when she sees her curtains move. Each time, the kids join in “reading” the repeated line, “There’s a   g  -   g   -  g   ghost in my room.” They can’t seem to help themselves. That makes for a lot of practice with the “g” sound. It also gives them an understanding of the sound the letter represents, a phonemic awareness skill that fits right in with the Common Core State Standards (especially RF.K.3a where students are expected to “Demonstrate basic knowledge of letter-sound correspondences by producing the primary or most frequent sound for each consonant.”)

One teacher told me her whole class erupted in clapping when the tables turned on the Mother at the end of the story. You can imagine how pleased I was to hear that report—almost as pleased as I will be to introduce more stories to my students in the coming months.

I look forward to finding those special books to enrich the lives of my students and my readers.

CALLING ALL CARS for the 100th Day of School

It is hard to believe but this week we celebrated the 100^th day of school. That special day ranks right up there with Valentine’s Day around our campus. Most teachers asked their students to bring in 100 items of their choice. Take a look at their clever ideas.

One of my speech students asked if we could read 100 books in honor of the day but we’ll have to make that a long-term goal. After all, we don’t want to rush through a good story.

And speaking of a good story, I was able to share a new book with a kindergarten class this week. They were thrilled to be part of a review team for Calling All Cars by Sue Fliess, illustrated by Sarah Beise.

      Big cars,
           Small cars,

        Let’s call

        All cars!

They loved the zippy text and, I must admit, I loved reading it to them. I couldn’t help but match my speed to the speed of the racing cars then slow for the climb over the mountain.

       Zip through tunnels,

       Make no stops,

       Climb up over

       Mountaintops.

The kids poured over the bright, eye-popping colors and giggled at the illustrations of a long-necked giraffe in a tiny convertible, a car with elevator wheels and adorable animals on every page. They each picked a favorite scene and their choices were as varied as the clever text and illustrations.

The students thought this was a great story for the 100^th day of school because there were at least 100 cars in the book.

I’d say it was a good choice because their enthusiasm hit a full 100%!

HOW TO SPEAK DOLPHIN

It has been quite awhile since I last posted but my writing time has been well spent. I completed a middle grade novel, and now, before I start working on the next one, I thought I’d check in on my blog. Thank you all who continued to visit while I was away. I expected to find the number of views had plummeted, but what a surprise—they kept growing. I appreciate those of you who dropped by.

School is out and I’m on summer vacation so I won’t have many student stories to share but I do have a fabulous book to bring to your attention. My first read of the summer was HOW TO SPEAK DOLPHIN by Ginny Rorby, published by Scholastic Press.

I was drawn to this book for several reasons: first, I’ve enjoyed Ms. Rorby’s previous novels and assumed her writing would be as engaging as ever (I was right); second, Ginny Rorby is a friend of mine and I wanted to know what she has been up to in her writing life; third, Ms. Rorby did substantial research for this book in the autism class at the school where I work—with MY STUDENTS.

The narrator of this story, Lily, is big sister to Adam, a young child on the autism spectrum. You can’t help but root for this loyal, loving sister, whose family-life revolves around her half-brother. Her life takes a twist when her oncologist, step-dad, Don, is called in to assist in treating a young dolphin with cancer. Don brings Adam along, and when he meets Nori, a rescued bottlenose dolphin, a bond forms between them that crosses the communication boundaries inherent in Adam’s disability.

Adam is soon enrolled in a Dolphin Assisted Therapy program in hopes that his communication skills will improve. But when Lily sees how confining the environment is for the young dolphin, and realizes Nori may have to live in a chain-linked pen at the back of a pool for the next 37 years, she struggles between her loyalty to Adam and her desire to see this young dolphin freed from captivity.

Since several of my students are on the autism spectrum, I read the book with a critical eye to Ms. Rorby’s depiction of such a child. She did a brilliant job. Not only did she paint an accurate picture of Adam, she clearly depicted the family struggles surrounding a child with Adam’s particular cluster of autistic behaviors.

This story draws compassion from its readers—compassion for those with disabilities, their families, and for animals held in captivity.

I may not have shared stories about my students in this post, but Ginny did a fine job doing so. The main character in her book, Adam, is fictional, but his name and many of his characteristics are not. I work with the real Adam and with others in his class who exhibit the behaviors Ginny so accurately described.

When school rolls around in the fall, I’m glad I will have HOW TO SPEAK DOLPHIN on hand to share with my students, especially those animal-loving girls at our middle school. Perhaps their insights and our future discussions will make their way to this blog. I’ll keep you posted.