History:
Dr. Seuss or Theodor Seuss Geisel published his first book in 1937. He wrote over 48 books and has sold over 200 million copies. He has been translated into multiple languages and is sold all across the world. He is said to use 200+ new reader words in his writing. This is important because he believed his books could be a good alternate for school readings that were used for word priming[1].
Footnotes:
[1] 2009. Dr. Seuss born. Retrieved from http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/dr-seuss-born
Green Eggs and Ham:
Rhyming:
Dr. Seuss is well known for its rhyming. Rhyming has the benefits of better phonemic awareness and reading skills. Rhyming involves breaking down words into their basic sounds (phonemes) and then matching those to similar phonemes in other words. An example is "Ham" and "Sam". "Ham" can be broken down to "H" "am" and "Sam" "S" "Am". the "H" and "S" do not not match but the "am" does[1]. Knowing these principles to rhyming a child must be able to break words down to their phonemes. Better phoneme awareness has lead to children being able to read 4-24 months earlier than children with no previous exposure[2]. Further research has shown children that knew more nursery rhymes had better phonological awareness later on in life[3].
Footnotes:
[1] Dr. Warriner. “Reading, Student Experiment Demo” Lecture, Hamilton, March 30, 2015.
[2] Bradley, L., & Bryant, P. E. (1983). Categorising sounds and learning to read: A casual connection. Nature, 310, 419-421.
[3] Dr.Donna. The Benefits of Rhyming: How Rhyming Predicts Future Reading Success. Retrieved from http://www.gemmlearning.com/blog/learning_science/the-benefits-of-rhyming-how-rhyming-predicts-future-reading-success/
Criticism:
In my opinion Dr. Seuss could have more cognitive developmental skills integrated into the stories. Green eggs and ham for example is fairly basic but the concepts and sequence of sentences can be complicated especially for a younger audience. The only cognitive developmental skills I was able to find was Phonological awareness. The story did not follow much of beginning middle and end. Dr. Seuss just kept adding on rhyming pairs to his original rhymes. As we have discussed children are fairly advanced in understanding of many aspects of the world even at a young age. The age demographic for this book is listed as from birth and on. This story will only be appealing to children for a short period of time because they will become more advances fairly quickly. The stories appear to be too basic compared to what children's understanding actually is at that age. The stories could have involved goals, categorization, or even some basic physics. Children would be able to understand some of these concepts or could be introduced to them.
Dr. Seuss or Theodor Seuss Geisel published his first book in 1937. He wrote over 48 books and has sold over 200 million copies. He has been translated into multiple languages and is sold all across the world. He is said to use 200+ new reader words in his writing. This is important because he believed his books could be a good alternate for school readings that were used for word priming[1].
Footnotes:
[1] 2009. Dr. Seuss born. Retrieved from http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/dr-seuss-born
Green Eggs and Ham:
Rhyming:
Dr. Seuss is well known for its rhyming. Rhyming has the benefits of better phonemic awareness and reading skills. Rhyming involves breaking down words into their basic sounds (phonemes) and then matching those to similar phonemes in other words. An example is "Ham" and "Sam". "Ham" can be broken down to "H" "am" and "Sam" "S" "Am". the "H" and "S" do not not match but the "am" does[1]. Knowing these principles to rhyming a child must be able to break words down to their phonemes. Better phoneme awareness has lead to children being able to read 4-24 months earlier than children with no previous exposure[2]. Further research has shown children that knew more nursery rhymes had better phonological awareness later on in life[3].
Footnotes:
[1] Dr. Warriner. “Reading, Student Experiment Demo” Lecture, Hamilton, March 30, 2015.
[2] Bradley, L., & Bryant, P. E. (1983). Categorising sounds and learning to read: A casual connection. Nature, 310, 419-421.
[3] Dr.Donna. The Benefits of Rhyming: How Rhyming Predicts Future Reading Success. Retrieved from http://www.gemmlearning.com/blog/learning_science/the-benefits-of-rhyming-how-rhyming-predicts-future-reading-success/
Criticism:
In my opinion Dr. Seuss could have more cognitive developmental skills integrated into the stories. Green eggs and ham for example is fairly basic but the concepts and sequence of sentences can be complicated especially for a younger audience. The only cognitive developmental skills I was able to find was Phonological awareness. The story did not follow much of beginning middle and end. Dr. Seuss just kept adding on rhyming pairs to his original rhymes. As we have discussed children are fairly advanced in understanding of many aspects of the world even at a young age. The age demographic for this book is listed as from birth and on. This story will only be appealing to children for a short period of time because they will become more advances fairly quickly. The stories appear to be too basic compared to what children's understanding actually is at that age. The stories could have involved goals, categorization, or even some basic physics. Children would be able to understand some of these concepts or could be introduced to them.
If I Ran the Zoo
Analysis
The books are centered on the idea that children who are exposed to language and opportunities to play with language have a better phonemic awareness[1]. Phonemic awareness helps a child break down the phonemes in words. For example, in the word cat there are three phones /k/ /a/ and /t/. Children who have better phonemic awareness at a young age have a subsequent better reading achievement in the 1st and 2nd grade[2]. Thus, the book does a great job at encouraging children to play with language and experience how adults can play with language. Also, the books would be very beneficial for its preschool readers because they are just starting to understand reading.
Footnotes:
[1] Wasik, B. A. (2001). Phonemic awareness and young children. Childhood Education, 77(3), 128-133.
[2] Adams, M. J. (1994). Beginning to read: Thinking and learning about print. MIT press.
Seuss. (1950). If I ran the zoo. Random House Books for Young Readers.
Criticism:
The book does a great job of creating an interesting world kids can read about. The book describes several different "imaginary" animals that the narrator wishes lived in the Zoo. However, the book does not focus too much on the characteristics of real animals. Learning about imaginary animals may confused children about what certain animals features look like. For example, in a study by Younger and Cohen (1983), 10 month old infants were sensitive to the relationship between critical features of animals presented[1].
Also the book does not give children any exposure into how the physical worlds works. For example, in the book the characters balance on tightropes holding heavy plates and a bird with an extremely long neck is able to sit on a thin log without falling. Thus, the book does not expose children to how gravity really works missing an opportunity to teach children about the physical world.
Footnotes:
[1] Younger, B. A., & Cohen, L. B. (1986). Developmental change in infants' perception of correlations among attributes. Child development, 803-815.
Seuss. (1950). If I ran the zoo. Random House Books for Young Readers.
References:
2009. Dr. Seuss born. Retrieved from http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/dr-seuss-born
Bradley, L., & Bryant, P. E. (1983). Categorising sounds and learning to read: A casual connection. Nature, 310, 419-421.
Dr.Donna. The Benefits of Rhyming: How Rhyming Predicts Future Reading Success. Retrieved from http://www.gemmlearning.com/blog/learning_science/the-benefits-of-rhyming-how-rhyming-predicts-future-reading-success/
Dr. Warriner. “Reading, Student Experiment Demo” Lecture, Hamilton, March 30, 2015.
Seuss, D., & Edmondson, A. (1960). Green eggs and ham. New York: Random House.
Seuss. (1950). If I ran the zoo. Random House Books for Young Readers.
Younger, B. A., & Cohen, L. B. (1986). Developmental change in infants' perception of correlations among attributes. Child development, 803-815.
Analysis
The books are centered on the idea that children who are exposed to language and opportunities to play with language have a better phonemic awareness[1]. Phonemic awareness helps a child break down the phonemes in words. For example, in the word cat there are three phones /k/ /a/ and /t/. Children who have better phonemic awareness at a young age have a subsequent better reading achievement in the 1st and 2nd grade[2]. Thus, the book does a great job at encouraging children to play with language and experience how adults can play with language. Also, the books would be very beneficial for its preschool readers because they are just starting to understand reading.
Footnotes:
[1] Wasik, B. A. (2001). Phonemic awareness and young children. Childhood Education, 77(3), 128-133.
[2] Adams, M. J. (1994). Beginning to read: Thinking and learning about print. MIT press.
Seuss. (1950). If I ran the zoo. Random House Books for Young Readers.
Criticism:
The book does a great job of creating an interesting world kids can read about. The book describes several different "imaginary" animals that the narrator wishes lived in the Zoo. However, the book does not focus too much on the characteristics of real animals. Learning about imaginary animals may confused children about what certain animals features look like. For example, in a study by Younger and Cohen (1983), 10 month old infants were sensitive to the relationship between critical features of animals presented[1].
Also the book does not give children any exposure into how the physical worlds works. For example, in the book the characters balance on tightropes holding heavy plates and a bird with an extremely long neck is able to sit on a thin log without falling. Thus, the book does not expose children to how gravity really works missing an opportunity to teach children about the physical world.
Footnotes:
[1] Younger, B. A., & Cohen, L. B. (1986). Developmental change in infants' perception of correlations among attributes. Child development, 803-815.
Seuss. (1950). If I ran the zoo. Random House Books for Young Readers.
References:
2009. Dr. Seuss born. Retrieved from http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/dr-seuss-born
Bradley, L., & Bryant, P. E. (1983). Categorising sounds and learning to read: A casual connection. Nature, 310, 419-421.
Dr.Donna. The Benefits of Rhyming: How Rhyming Predicts Future Reading Success. Retrieved from http://www.gemmlearning.com/blog/learning_science/the-benefits-of-rhyming-how-rhyming-predicts-future-reading-success/
Dr. Warriner. “Reading, Student Experiment Demo” Lecture, Hamilton, March 30, 2015.
Seuss, D., & Edmondson, A. (1960). Green eggs and ham. New York: Random House.
Seuss. (1950). If I ran the zoo. Random House Books for Young Readers.
Younger, B. A., & Cohen, L. B. (1986). Developmental change in infants' perception of correlations among attributes. Child development, 803-815.