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Copyright © 2006 by Fred Duckworth. All rights reserved. This publication is copyrighted and may not be linked to directly, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher.
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Mama Duck wants Baby Duck to be a reader. She wants her little chick to have big dreams, and she wants those dreams to come true. How can Mama Duck help Baby Duck learn to read?
First, Mama Duck helps Baby Duck find books she likes. Mama Duck and baby duck go to the library together. They write letters to baby duck’s cousins and spell out all the words. They read before bed every night. Baby Duck sees Mama Duck read and she knows Mama Duck thinks reading is very important.
Mama Duck and baby Duck talk a lot. They talk about what they are doing. Mama Duck asks Baby Duck about her day. Mama Duck asks Baby Duck about her world. Mama Duck tells Baby Duck what she knows.
Mama Duck helps Baby Duck hear how baby and bubble start with the same sound. She helps her hear that kitten and mitten rhyme. Mama Duck and Baby Duck sing songs. They say nursery rhymes. Baby Duck is getting ready to read. Mama Duck is helping her.
Mama Duck and Baby Duck start with ant and go all the way to zebra. They say all the letters of the alphabet. They look for letters everywhere. They say their names and the sounds they make. They practice writing all the letters.
Mama Duck helps Baby Duck know what words mean. She teaches her that things have names. She teaches her the colors and the foods they eat. She teaches her the animals and the kinds of weather. She teaches her walk, run, jump, and fly. She teaches her is, was, and will be.
Mama Duck helps Baby Duck practice reading. She reads Baby Duck her favorite book out loud. Baby duck reads it too. They take turns. Baby Duck reads it over and over. Mama Duck doesn’t mind. Baby duck reads until the words sound right. Mama Duck says, “Great job reading!”
Mama Duck helps Baby Duck understand what she reads. Mama Duck says, “Tell me about this story. What happened? Who did what? Why? How did it end?” Mama Duck and Baby Duck talk about it. Mama Duck says, “What do you think about the story?” Then she listens.
Mama Duck shows baby duck that reading matters. She helps Baby Duck to hear the sounds in words when they talk. She helps her learn the ABCs. She helps Baby Duck know what words mean.
And Mama Duck helps Baby Duck practice reading and understand what she reads. Why? Because Mama Duck loves Baby Duck, and Mama Duck knows that reading will help Baby Duck make her dreams come true.
The End
From the author...
I’ve created this handbook to equip anyone with the ability to teach reading to whomever may need it.
And while there are various alternative schools of thought as to how one can best go about this, I’ve hesitated to push one approach over another, seeing as how I’m not big on dogma in any form (beyond that of biblical truth).
There is however, in my experience, one claim that seems to have significant validity, and that is the assertion that we deliberately create unnecessary confusion when we begin reading instruction by teaching children the alphabet.
As a private tutor, I’ve often had to work with nonreaders unable to decode words due to the strong association they formed between the letters of the alphabet and their corresponding names.
For example, when such learners are presented with the word pat, the symbols fail to elicit or “trigger” the expected /păt / because p-a-t, which they invariably identify as “pee-aye-tee” sounds nothing like /păt /.
However, having pointed this out, the fact of the matter remains that I am nonetheless able to quickly teach kinds of nonreaders how to read at a relatively accelerated pace. Consequently, I believe that the real problem exists in the failure to teach
such learners (or to emphasize for them) the one-to-one correspondence between certain letters and certain sounds.
Moreover, reading instruction for most children in the United States still begins with “The Alphabet Song” sung to the tune of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.”
Consequently, this book will begin in the same way, though you must decide for yourself as to whether or not you wish to do so as well.
Baby Duck Learns to Read
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While you’re teaching your child “The Alphabet Song” purchase a set of lowercase alphabet letters. Scramble the lowercase letters on the table in front of your child and have him or her arrange them in alphabetical order as he or she sings the song. As soon as he or she has learned the names of the letters, begin teaching the sounds of the vowels.
So now, let us begin with our explicit, step-by-step procedures for reading instruction...
Select a book that is a favorite or your learner, with which he or she is very familiar.
As a first step in explorig concepts about print, you will be helping your child get aquainted with the front cover, back cover, and title page, as well as how to hold a book and how to turn the pages properly.
Put the book in your learner’s lap with the cover facing up. Say . . .
“Books are organized into different parts, and to get the most out of reading any book it’s a good idea to know what each part is and why each part is there.”
Invite your learner to identify rhyming words in a poem or trying in on repetitive parts of text as you point to the words. Allow your learner to read with you, depending on the text.
Before reading a Pre-the quotable bloke, take time to familiarize your learner with any new high-frequency words in the book and to review previously introduced words.
You can view the list of high-frequency words at the following links. The first list is by sequence. The second is by alphabetical order.
The Apprenticeship of
R E A D I N G
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As sort of a “warm-up” reading activity, I have written a little story that you may or may not wish to use, based on Big Dreams: a Family Book About Reading, a publication put out by the Government Printing Office. Unfortunately, at this time I have no illustrations.
In so doing, you will engage him or her in
- unlocking the book's message
- developing print awareness
- participating in good reading behaviors
- helping him or her become aware that a given word is still the same way every time and occurs
- reinforced the correspondence between spoken and written words
- connect illustrations to text
- explore books for enjoyment and information
- interpret and respond to literature.
Point to the front cover of the book again and say . . .
“First of all, the front of a book is called the book cover.
The book cover on many books is hard. It will always have the name of the book, which is called the book’s title.”
(Use your finger to point out the title of the book as you read the title.)
“It will also have the name of the person who wrote the book, whom we call the author. Sometimes the book cover will have the name of the person who did the pictures that are in the book. We call that person the illustrator. And finally, book covers usually have some type of picture on them.”
While looking at the picture on the cover say . . .
“The main job of a book cover is to grab your attention and attract you to the book so that you'll want to pick it up and look inside.
“It should also make the book ‘distinctive.’ That means it should make the book look different enough from other books to make it easy for you to recognize it quickly.
“The book cover should also give you some idea of what's inside the book – of what the book is all about.
“Most books also have a title page, which gives the name of the book’s title, its author, and its publisher a second time.”
Turn the book over to read the back.
Point out to your learner how the front and back of a book are different. Say . . .
“And finally, the back of a book is called the back cover. It has information about where and when the book was made, which is called publication information and the copyright date, which tells us when the book was offficially finished.”
Open the cover to the first page. Look at the pictures on the first page.
Point to where the story begins and where the story ends.
Show your learner how you begin reading on the first page and turn one page at a time.
Have your learner practice turning the pages one at a time until he or she reachedes the end of the book.
Now read the first page together. Use your finger to point to each word as you read. Allow your child to turn the pages. Read until you reach the last page of the book.
When you are finished, say . . .
“Now it’s your turn. I'm going to give you a different book now, and I want you to show me where is the front cover, where is the back cover, and where is the title page.”
The next few pages will help you teach your child an awareness of concepts she has to know.
Encourage discussion of anything your notices about the words. Help him or her begin to realize that you are reading separate words that are separated by spaces. Later, he or she will begin to see that each word is made up of a group of letters.
Encourage your learner to discuss anything related to the print. For example, you might ask him or her to point to a word or count the number of words on the line. Or you might connect the words to the illustrations by pointing to a word and saying it and then asking your learner to find a picture of that word.
“Now it’s your turn. I'm going to give you a different book now, and I want you to show me where is the front cover, where is the back cover, and where is the title page.”
At the beginning of each day, select a different (or the same) book to read with your learner.Use this time to offer your learner the opportunity to confirm and expand his or her knowledge about print and reading.
Point to each word as it is read to demonstrate that text proceeds from left to right and from top to bottom.
This will also help to advance the idea that words are individually spoken and written units.
