Book Review: You Read to Me, I'll Read to You: Very Short Fairy Tales to Read Together
Rate This Article
What Parents Should Know
Learning to read is an interactive process by definition,
and this book offers a built-in format that promotes that
interaction. The dramatic, play-acting aspect of the text will
engage both the experienced reader and the beginner. In
addition, each modified classic fairy tale "skit" ends by
encouraging the reader to seek out the original version.
Common Sense Media Review
This is the companion book to the successful
You Read to Me, I'll Read to You by Hoberman and
Emberley, published in 2001, which was a New York Times
bestseller and an ALA Notable Children's Book. Mary Ann
Hoberman, who won a National Book Award in 1983 for her
children's book
A House is a House For Me, was inspired to write the
You Read to Me books through her work with the
Literacy Volunteers of America. She says in the author's note
that she sees "the book's users as either a pair of beginning
readers (two children, or a child and a parent who is in a
literacy program) or one beginning and one more-advanced reader
(either an older child or an adult)."
The teaching technique used in both books 1 and 2 is clever and appealing, perhaps most significantly in that it requires both readers, whatever their level of expertise, to be engaged in the process. Each has a part in the play so both readers must think about character, voice, articulation, expression, etc. In more traditional early reader books, it is the child or adult beginner who bears the entire burden of reading. This format makes the learning work shared and more enjoyable.
The design of the pages and delightful illustrations help as well. The alternating parts of the plays are printed in different colors and surrounded by a spacious white background. The colorful, cartoon-style pictures run alongside the text offering support and suggestions for the acting out of the play. Emberley's attractive picture characters are as entertaining and expressive as those in the text.
Perfect for parents to use with their children who are learning to read, both this book and its companion should be staples in any school program for beginning readers, as well as literacy programs for adults.
From the book:
Here's another book,
Book two--
You read to me!
I'll read to you!
We'll read each page
To one another--
You'll read one side,
I the other.
Common Sense Media is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing information to help parents make media and entertainment choices for their families.
0 |
