Book Love: Bears on Chairs Learn to Share

I picked this book, Bears on Chairs by Shirley Parenteau, up from the library this week for my 23 month-old. After the 3rd-4th reading she's following the plot, and interacting with the characters, especially Big Brown Bear. When the Big Brown Bear tried to share a chair with a little bear she said, "NO!" Then I asked her if the bears should share their chairs, and she said, "Yes!"  I love that this book shows how these little bears problem-solve in several different ways in order to share their chairs. This books teaches our young ones the value of cooperation and sharing.

Book description from Booklist:
Four round little bears. Four straight-back chairs. That works—until Big Brown Bear enters the scene looking for someplace to sit down. Using plenty of repetition and the simplest of rhyming couplets (“What a stare / from Big Brown Bear. / That big bear / wants a chair!”), the text follows the travails of Brown Bear as he tries to find a place to sit down. Along with the visual treat of watching softly colored bears and chairs on expanses of white pages, this book cleverly melds words and art for several other purposes. New readers will find this an inviting place to start picking out words, while budding logicians can sharpen their skills trying to figure out how five bears can sit in four chairs. The bears do it (after some trial and error), and the happy ending is the perfect finish to a sweet exercise. Preschool-Kindergarten. --Ilene Cooper

My Reading Teacher Perspective:
This book is packed full of goodness for your early readers. Yes it encourages sharing (a very important lesson, indeed!), but it also manages to do these wonderful things:

• Rhyme builds phonemic awareness (awareness of sound in letters/words). This book is packed to the brim with rhyme: Look!/Calico Bear/shifts his chair/over there/near Big Brown Bear./Big Brown Bear/helps Calico Bear/make one double chair/for three to share. The rhyme in this book is so repetitive and simple that it feels like a chant/song. My daughter laughed when I was reading. I can tell she loved the sounds the words were making.
• This books builds critical thinking skills! These little bears try several ways to solve a problem. In order to build comprehension later on in life, we have to make sure our wee ones are critical thinkers! Reading=thinking.
• Repetition builds fluency, builds phonemic awareness, and (in this case) encourages vocabulary development. This book is chock full of repetition!! I can guarantee that your child will know the words chair, bear, share after reading this book!

Be well! Read on!

Fluency Part 1: The Importance of Reading Fluently

Before I became a teacher, the lovely state of California require that I spend some certain amount of hours volunteering in a classroom. So began the hoops (credential programs are quite infamous for hoop-jumping). I spent 45 hours-ish in a elementary classroom in Oakland. And what did I come away with? A lot of criticism for the school and the teacher. Of course, the newbie that I was, I saw flaws with the educational system, classroom behavior standards, the teaching curriculum, and methods.

For example, I was critical of the students' practice of fluency passages. Why? It seemed like a senseless use of time- reading and rereading a passage to get a faster time. I assumed they collected these scores so that the city of Oakland could have some quick data with which to proclaim growth in reading- perhaps true, but completely cynical (and naive) of me. I thought the practice of these passages seemed like a complete waste of time. Little did I know...

It's easy to be critical. Especially when it's not your classroom. Especially as a new (or seasoned) teacher. Especially as someone unversed in reading theory and best practices.

A few years down the road, after I got my credential, after I taught middle school for a couple of years (which I loved!)...I learned a little more about fluency...why it's important...what it tells us about a child's reading...and how we should strive to improve it. So, the blinders came off, and I learned that fluency is more than reading a passage faster and faster, and it actually is a fabulous window into a child's overall reading ability.

Little did I know...
The National Reading Panel  did a study, and (italicized print below is from thier site) the Panel's thorough research on reading instruction was conducted by five subgroups, which focused on (1) Alphabetics, (2) Fluency, (3) Comprehension, (4) Teacher Education and Reading Instruction, and (5) Computer Technology and Reading Instruction.

Little did I know...

Reading fluency is one of several critical factors necessary for reading comprehension.

Little did I know...

If children read out loud with speed, accuracy, and proper expression, they are more likely to comprehend and remember the material than if they read with difficulty and in an inefficient way.

Little did I know...

Guided repeated oral reading, encourages students to read passages out loud with systematic and explicit guidance and feedback from their teacher. And these repeated reads are one key way to improve a child's reading fluency.

So, again, it's easy to be critical (like I was), especially about fluency. But unless you know the theory behind why we have students practice fluency, then maybe you should hold your tongue (or your inner thoughts). I wish I did.

I'm going to write a few posts on fluency strategies and activities that I like to use with my reading intervention students. I just wanted to start off by stating that a child's ability to read fluently (good rate, expression, phrasing, etc...) is very important. And as reading teachers, there are some fairly simple things we can do to improve our student's fluency-- which will eventually lead to improved comprehension and reading confidence-- which is the end goal indeed.

Read On! Teach On!