Review of Children's Books

The first book I picked is actually a part of my literacy curriculum. Ducky by Eve Bunting is a story about a bunch of bathtub toys who get lost in the ocean. The toys float through the ocean until at last there are washed up on the shore and rescued by a science class.

The number one thing which makes this story difficult for my ELL students is the vocabulary. This story includes a lot of water related words which most of my students have not ever heard. It is rare for me to have even one student who has ever been on a boat or to the ocean. Some of these words include surface, drift (not something you do in a car like they think), float and bobbed. When teaching this vocabulary to my students I use a very hands on visual approach. I give groups of students a rubber duck and a bucket of water. Each group is responsible for learning one of the words and demonstrating it to the class with their rubber duck. Then all the groups demonstrate all of the words together.

The second issue I have noticed many students struggle with in this book is the fact that it is written in first person. I have found it is helpful to do a lot of practice with this before beginning the story. I have students say a sentence in third person and then change it to first person and discuss how using I or he/she changes it. Many of my ELL students struggle with pronouns so this is something we revisit throughout the year.

The second book I picked is The Car Washing Street by Denise Lewis Patrick. This is a story about a neighborhood where all the neighbors get together and wash their cars on Saturday mornings. The main character's family does not own a car; however, he still enjoys car washing morning because it is always a surprise what is going to happen.

This books main difficulty is the setting of the story is like a different world to my students who have never left Lochbuie, Colorado. Many of my students have never been to a city. They have little understanding of the setting descriptions in the book which include sounds of an urban environment. When reading this book I like to integrate it with our social studies curriculum and discuss how cities are different than a rural community. What are the different things they might see or hear. I also show pictures of cities which are similar to the one in the illustrations in the book.

The second difficulty with this book is once again vocabulary. For example the boy sits on his stoop. This is a word which not a single kid had heard before. They were unable to use the context to figure this word out. I have now learned it works best to discuss all of the vocabulary in this story using visuals when ever possible prior to reading it. I then tell the students to try to find the words while they are reading.