Lit Picks - Vocabulary Development

I am very passionate about reducing "screen time" for kids, and promoting real life experiences!  I know there are some very amazing and educational apps, TV shows, and movies out there, and I use a lot of apps in speech or language therapy with my students or clients.  I am not opposed to screen time at all!  But I think it should be more like dessert: a special treat every once in awhile (unless a child is under 2, and then I say they should very rarely be exposed to any screen time, if at all).

I'm not writing all of this because I think I'm some huge expert because I have a 7-month-old baby.  I really am still a total newb at this whole parenting thing.  However, I am 6 months from graduating with my master's in speech-language pathology, and I already have my bachelor's in early childhood education.  Therefore, I do feel like I have some valuable information to share.


One of the best ways to promote language is through literature!  So I'm going to be sharing some of my (and Scarlett's) favorite books, and how to use them to promote language.  This will be sort of a casual series that I'll post whenever I feel like I have some good books to share.

Today I'm going to share a couple of Scarlett's favorite books that I think are great at promoting vocabulary acquisition.  A major cause of language delays is simple lack of exposure to language.  You would be surprised at the preschoolers I've worked with who can't name simple household objects or animals, simply because they haven't been interacted with enough as babies/toddlers.  If they've never heard the vocabulary, how can they learn it?

I have a couple of books today that are great for babies or toddlers.  They are both lift-a-flap books.  Interactive books of any kind are great for babies or young children. 

The first book is "Toes, Ears, and Nose" illustrated by Karen Katz. 

We love this book!  I have used it in therapy, as well as daily around this house.  Each page shows a clothing item that you lift to reveal a body part:

How to use it: The book targets clothing and body part vocabulary.  When I've used it with clients in the past, I would have them point to whatever body part was on the page.  Then at the end of the story, I would review the body parts again and tell him: "Show me your teeth,"  "show me your elbow," etc.  Same with clothing items.  Obviously this would only work with older kids who have the receptive language skills to do that.  But the book itself is good for babies, toddlers, or preschoolers.

I love Karen Katz's books. They are bright and colorful, so Scarlett is content to sit and look at them over and over again.  Karen Katz has a bunch of other books like this, too.  HERE is a link to her website, where she has 4 or 5 pages of other books like this! She has a lot of seasonal stuff, which I of course love.  Scarlett has the "Where is Baby's Pumpkin?"  book too, and we read it every day leading up to Halloween.

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Another book that's really big with Scarlett right now is "100 First Animals."  It is another lift-a-flap book.

 

 

One of the reasons I love this book so much is that each page is a different category of animals.  Like farm, sea, rivers and lakes, etc.

How to use it:  With Scarlett, I go through and read all the animals on a page.  Then I let her lift the flaps, and just name the animal every time she lifts a flap.  I also like to make the animal noises and sometimes say what color it is. 

For older children, this book would be good for categorizing, which is a really important language skill.  When Scarlett is preschool age, I may just scan and copy the pages and cut out the animals.  then I'll have her sort them.  I could also show her a group of 3 animals cards and have her tell me how they are alike. Or have her tell me which one doesn't belong in a group.  As a side note, this is a good activity to do with stuffed animals or other toys.

Happy Reading!

2014 book 1: Divergent

One of my goals this year was to read 1 book every month.  I decided to read Divergent in January. 

 

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I had heard really good things about the book, and also wanted to read it before the movie comes out in March.  Plus I really just love dystopian books and movies.  I knew it was similar to The Hunger Games, and that was also one of the main reasons I wanted to read it. 

Divergent was the first book, besides textbooks and reference books, I read since the beginning of grad school a year-and-a-half ago!  And I have to say, it was a good pick!  I loved it! 

The action in the book was pretty much ongoing.  In the first 200 pages it seemed like there was never a dull moment as you figure out the characters and the way the society works.  

Even though the first 200 pages were pretty good and full of action, I was kind of thinking, "Okay, this is good.  But nothing excellent.  Not as good as The Hunger Games."  But then the last 100 pages happened, and I couldn't put it down!  The ending was very intense.  Still probably not quite as good as The Hunger Games, but close! Ha!  And it really set up the action for the sequel so that you just have to read the next book.

The only complaint I have is that it was a little heavy on the love story.  That is one thing I really like about The Hunger Games: yes, it was partly a love story, but they kept it so innocent, and focused more on the action.  Maybe this is just a personal preference, but I think they could have left the sex talk out.  Especially since it is technically a young adult novel.  Divergent is not nearly as obnoxious as Twilight with the love story, but much more obnoxious than The Hunger Games.  

Overall I would say it was a great read!  I am really looking forward to reading Insurgent, the sequel.  And also really excited about going to see the movie!  I just watched the trailer and it gave me chills!  

Have you read Divergent?  What were your thoughts?                                               

The Hunger Games Movie vs. Book: My Thoughts

 I made it to the theater this weekend to see The Hunger Games, after reading all three books around Christmastime.  I thought I'd share my thoughts this afternoon. 

Overall, I thought this was one of the best movie adaptations I've ever seen.  They stuck so closely to the book!  There were a few minor changes, but only one that bothered me a little (I don't want to put any spoilers in here, so I'm not going to say which part it was).

First of all, I thought the acting was superb.  Jennifer Lawrence was THE perfect Katniss Everdeen if you ask me. And Josh Hutcherson was great as Peeta.  The only characters that didn't 100% match the picture in my head were Elizabeth Banks as Effie Trinket (I'm not sure why...maybe it's because I can only ever see her as Kim from Scrubs? I've watched way too many hours of Scrubs)  and Woody Harrelson as Haymitch (In the book I felt a love/hate sort of thing for Haymitch, and I thought Woody Harrelson made him just a touch too lovable).

I also thought they handled the heavy subject matter pretty well.  Yes, it is a violent book.  However, I think the violence serves the purpose to convey a very powerful message.  I thought the movie was well-done in that they kept the deaths quick and showed as little as possible, but still conveyed the horror of the whole premise of the Hunger Games (a game where children fight to the death).

One big concern I had about the movie was that they wouldn't be able to convey all of Katniss's thoughts on the screen, because such a huge part of the book is her inner dialogue.  However, I thought they did a great job of this.  They used the announcers a lot to explain what was going on, and the music and mood of the scenes portrayed the rest.

I compare this series to the Harry Potter books and the Twilight books, in that it is a young adult series of epic novels.  If I were to rate how well the movie matched the book, I would say The Hunger Games definitely wins if it is competing against the other books I mentioned.  Simply because the Harry Potter books contained so much, it was impossible to fully transform them into movies because there was no possible way to include everything.  And Twilight failed miserably in casting, in my opinion.  Kristen Stewart is nothing like the Bella I pictured, and Robert Pattinson is not an attractive/lovable enough Edward. And let's fact it, Taylor Lautner is too hot to play a character that wasn't supposed to be nearly so lovable in the books.  Anyway, I think The Hunger Games did a fantastic job of casting the perfect actors for their characters, and also sticking to the book for most main plot points.

So what did you think?  Did they do a good job with the movie?  I still think the book was better, because the book is always better!  But I thought the movie was about as good as it could have been.

Current Reading Love

Over the past year or so, I've become increasingly interested in biographies and autobiographies. I used to think they were boring, but obviously I was way off base. I'll take a good biography over a fiction book any day (with a few exceptions).

I started my biography obsession last year when I read Life, in Spite of Me by Kristen Jane Anderson. It was a book about a girl who had tried to commit suicide by jumping under a train. She miraculously survived, but lost both of her legs. The story was an incredible story of hope, and I loved it!

Next up I read Unplanned by Abby Johnson. It was about a woman who had worked for Planned Parenthood and then changed her whole stance on the abortion issue. The book was great to read for anyone on either side of the issue.

This year I've jumped into the biography/autobiography thing with both feet. I finished Choosing to See by Mary Beth Chapman a few days ago. It is the story of the Chapman family (as in, Steven Curtis Chapman) and their journey through adoption and ultimately, the tragic loss of their youngest daughter. The book was so good and totally inspired me to want to adopt. Even more than I was already inspired! Make sure you read it with a box of tissues.

I'm currently in the middle of reading Tina Fey's autobiography, Bossypants. I will add a disclaimer that I do not agree with everything in the book, and there's definitely some language in there. But for the most part, I can't read more than a sentence or two without laughing out loud. If you like her and that type of random humor, you will be in stitches if you read this book. (I always read on my Kindle in between classes at school in the atrium where a lot of people hang out. Last week I was reading Choosing to See and wiping away tears, and this week I'm reading Bossypants and suppressing giggles. People are going to start thinking I'm crazy!)

I just received another Amazon gift card as a thank you for pet-sitting the week of Christmas. And I've decided I think I'll spend it on two more biographies I've been wanting to read:

Kristin Chenoweth's A Little Bit Wicked

And Gabby Giffords' book

I don't know where this obsession has come from, but I just love reading/hearing interesting stories about people. Maybe that's why I read so many blogs, too!

What are some other biographies I need to read??

Crazy Love: an Eye-Opener

I want to start off by apologizing for yesterday's pessimistic post. It had been a very stressful day, and the weather was just something I couldn't deal with at the time. I'm feeling much better now, and I'm not hating the snow quite so much at the moment.

Today's post is much more uplifting, I promise :-)

I recently finished reading "Crazy Love" for my Bible study. The book really pushed me to jump out of my comfort zone, stop caring about what others think of me, and to stop being selfish. Honestly, selfishness is something that I really struggle with, especially when it comes to my time. I love being at home and doing my own thing, and I realized that I love it way too much. God does not call us to a life of comfort or self-centeredness. I guess it took that book to show me that.

One of the last chapters of the book is chalk full of examples of people who lived radically for Christ. They made themselves nothing, taking the very nature of servants. Sound familiar? Yeah, Jesus did that too :-) And that's what I want to do with my life. It's what I've always wanted to do, but somehow I've lost sight of that lately.

Now that I've realized that I'm being totally selfish and need to reexamine my life and make sure I'm not being a lukewarm Christian, there is another dilemma: where exactly do I begin?

The author of the book, Francis Chan, explains that living radically for Christ means that we need to let go of our insecurities. We need to forget what is normal for people, or even what is normal for Christians. He used the example that he and his family constantly have other people living with them who have nowhere else to go. This may not be normal, but it is what God called them to do. So first of all, I'm going to try to break the mold and not be self conscious about doing things for other people.

Okay, so now I know that I need to ignore social standards, but that still doesn't exactly tell me WHERE to start. Francis Chan also emphasizes that we shouldn't make these huge plans of how we are going to serve someday. Instead, we should worry about it one day at a time. Basically, we should find places in our worlds every day where we can serve others, and show them the love of Christ. Whether it be at work, at school, at home...even in line at the grocery store, or on the road during rush hour.

So that gives me a starting point. I've decided to really make an effort here to start viewing myself as a servant. I'm going to try to find at least one random act of kindness to do everyday. the more anonymous, the better. So hopefully, these little random acts will become a habit in my life, and will evolve into bigger and better things. I figure, ya gotta start somewhere!

"Crazy Love" was a GREAT book! It really opened my eyes, and made me realize that my outlook on Christianity and my relationship with God was a little warped. I learned so much about God, and feel like my relationship with Him has changed. It was a really quick, easy read, but at the same time, was a very big challenge because of the way it made me examine my life and my faults. If you haven't read it, you should!!