Can your baby moo like a cow? Bleat like a sheep? Arguably, first moos count as first words. According to the Hawaii Early Learning Profile, babies repeat playful sounds and gestures starting at about 12 months of age; they imitate environmental sounds between 18 and 21 months of age. Vrooom! Bam! BOOM. Is your baby almost one? Get quacking.
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...
I love Sandra Boynton. I am a teacher of children with special needs in a small community in South Eastern, Pennsylvania. My children love Sandra's silly characters and their silly sayings.
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