I Can Read: A Carnival Celebrating New Readers – June 2010

WELCOME to the June carnival for celebrating emerging and new readers is here at the Reading Tub. I Can Read! is a three-day, mid-month carnival whose host rotates each month.  We share reviews of easy readers and short chapter books, as well as ideas for helping new readers hone their skills.

If you’re not sure what an Easy Reader or Short Chapter Book, we have a detailed description in the inaugural carnival. In a nutshell, an Easy Reader is a book  designed for children learning to read. Many of them have a banner or label that says “learning to read” in some form, but others look like picture books. A short chapter book is also sized for the reader’s hand (i.e., 6″ x 9″).  They also have illustrations, usually black and white, and the placement will vary. In some books, an illustration fills one page and text the opposite page. You can also seek books with half-page illustrations on both pages and then smaller illustration on one page of a two-page spread.

We would love for you to participate in the carnival. Your post can be up to one year old, so posts back to June 2009 can be included!! Feel free to add your post via Mr. Linky or leave a link in the comments. The carnival runs from 14 June to 16 June 2010, and I’ll be adding comments/links until 18 June. UPDATED to fix inLinkz problem.

I am so excited about all the contributions this month! Yes we have books, but we have some ideas to share, too.

At Imagination Soup, Melissa Taylor lists some of her favorite wordless picture books, and shares a story about reading Pancakes for Breakfast by Tommy De Paola with her son. She reminds us that kids are naturals at “decoding” pictures and with wordless picture books they can also learn to sequence events in a story.  Here’s Melissa’s suggestion: “as your child ‘reads’ you the story, stop and say what YOU predict will happen next.  Do this often.  The next book you read, have your child stop and predict what they think will happen next in the story.  After hearing you make predictions, this will become easier for them to do and help them learn sequencing.”

Also, be sure to check out Michelle Breum’s ideas at Beginning Reading Help, too.  She not only describes various readers, but also shares how kids use these books to develop their skills.  She even shares a short video of her daughter reading Mort and Sport from the Now I’m Reading series. This is an excellent visual for helping you see AND HEAR how new readers sound and see how you can engage them by asking questions.

Easy Readers

Going Camping This Summer? At 5 Great Books, Anastasia Suen recommends five easy readers that will get the kids laughing and excited.

• Amelia Bedelia Goes Camping by Peggy Parish (ill. Lynn Sweat) Amelia Bedelia does everything (exactly as she’s told).
• Camping Out by Mercer Mayer – Little Critter and Gator camp out in the backyard, but can’t fall asleep.
• Fred and Ted Go Camping by Peter Eastman – Fred and Ted are good friends, but they do things very differently!
• The Scary Night by Anastasia Suen (ill. Mike Laughead) – How can Robot and Rico go to sleep after that scary campfire story.
• Turtle and Snake Go Camping by Kate Spohn – Turtle and Snake look for the perfect spot to go camping.

Back in May, I wrote about Arlo the armadillo who is the star of Wendy Wax’s books Arlo Makes a Friend and Arlo Gets Lost. They don’t have the “I Can Read” label that goes with most easy readers, but these picture books perfectly wrap a good story in reading practice.  Here’s the review on Scrub-a-Dub-Tub.

Short Chapter Books

Alien Encounter by Pamela Service (ill. Mike Gorman) – Series books are great ways to keep kids reading, and Jennifer Wharton says this book (the fourth in the series) will fit that bill. From her post at the Jean Little Library: “This is THE science fiction series for beginning chapter readers, as well as any kids who like a funny story and a good plot. No repetitions or stereotypes here! Pamela Service handles ideas about tolerance, futuristic science, human behavior, and family dynamics in an age-appropriate, humorous, and fast-paced read. Every book is highly recommended for public and school libraries!”

Doubles Troubles by Betty Hicks (ill. Simon Gane) – From Anastasia Suen: “Henry really wants to win the doubles tennis trophy, but his partner Rocky keeps messing up…This is a new chapter book about tennis, a fun summer sport.”  You can also read a snippet at Weekend Reads, Anastasia’s newest blog just for short chapter books.

Duck for a Day by Meg McKinlay (ill Leila Rudge) – Susan Stephenson, the ever-clever Book Chook offers this summary in her review: “As you may have guessed, with that lightning-fast wit that Book Chook readers are renowned for, [this junior] novel is about a duck. But what a duck! His name is Max, and he arrives at Abby’s school with new teacher Mrs Melvino. The kids are enthralled with this new class pet, and hope they can take turns to bring him to their homes. But it turns out that Max has demands about the sort of homes he will go to.”

If you are interested in hosting a future carnival – and 2011 will be here before we know it, please send me an email at terry [at] thereadingtub [.] com.

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Note: Book cover images link to Amazon.com. The Reading Tub has an affiliate relationship with Amazon and can earn income for our literacy work from purchases made through those links. By including these images, we are not implying that you should purchase these books or use these links.