Disclosure: I received a copy of this book for purposes of review. I was not financially compensated in any way. All the opinions expressed are my own.
Kimberly Scanlon authored a new book called Learning to Read is a Ball designed to help parents of pre-readers develop their young ones’ literacy skills. With an extensive parent guide in the back, this book is a good tool for the parent or caregiver that wants to teach his or her child pre-reading skills. I was invited to review this book and share my thoughts with you.
Scanlon’s book is like a two for one. It’s a picture book and it’s a how-to guide for parents. In the opening, she asks parents to refer to the parent guide in the back of the book. By reading this guide, parents learn many strategies to use while reading the story. Using the story in the front of the book as a reference, Scanlon shows the reader how the strategies can be implemented.
With this understanding, the parent can begin reading the story to the child. The story has simple language, rhyme, salient print, and meaningful pictures that are necessary for pre-readers to comprehend the story and begin to recognize print. Not only that, this story is interactive. Scanlon intentionally leaves places for the child to write on the pages which helps the child make the story his or her own. Both the parent and child learn from this book. The parent learns how to further his or her child’s literacy development with strategies that have been proven to be helpful and the child practices early literacy skills.
While this book is intended for pre-readers, I read this book with my beginning reader and he enjoyed the story. As we read, he asked good questions and interacted with the pictures. I used the strategy that Scanlon recommends called, “Complete the rhyming word”. As I read, I left off the second rhyming word for my child to anticipate and say on his own. These words are underlined in the story helping both the parent who is new to this strategy and the child.
My goal at Empowering Parents to Teach is to equip parents with the tools they need to teach their kids. Scanlon’s book is aligned to this goal. It’s not just another picture book, it is a teaching guide for parents who want to help promote their child’s early literacy. With the skills learned in this book, you can promote your child’s literacy anywhere or with any story.
Visit http://www.scanlonspeech.com/ for more tips to help your child’s speech and language development.
*Note: When this post was originally published (May 1, 2015), there was a giveaway. The giveaway is now closed and the winner received her copy of the book.
To purchase this book or Kimberly Scanlon’s first book, click on the links below or order them at your nearest Barnes and Noble:
*These are Amazon affiliate links.
