Silly Sally, by Audrey Wood, is a cumulative story. Cumulative stories are a unique genre of children's books. Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss comes to mind. There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly, a board book by Pam Adams, and This Is the House That Jack Built, by Simms Taback, are two more examples. Story lines accumulate in an additive fashion resulting in a repetitive and predictable text. Repetition and predictability... A perfect twosome for two- and three-year-olds! With repeat readings, young children chime in, finish lines, and ultimately 'read' stories on their own by pairing pictures with memorized text.
The short (or long or tall) of it: A concept book is a picture book that teaches a broad concept to young readers. Examples? Alphabet books, number books, books about c o l o r s , opposites, feelings and emotions. A concept is an idea, an abstract notion. Here's the rub. Very young readers are concrete thinkers, very "here and now." Luckily concept books do not have to teach the alphabetic principle, or algebra, or color theory. They teach what toddlers and young preschoolers can see, hear, touch, and feel - the upper and lowercase, quiet and loud, and happy and sad face of things. Three concept books by DENISE FLEMING: LUNCH (1998) from Henry Holt and Co. Concept: Colors. A toothsome mouse called Mouse eats his way through the primary and secondary colors and then some. The pictures are deliciously big. Bon appetit! The emergent literacy bent: The text is sparse and the letters large, fostering print awareness. Point out a few words as you read. Clever...
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