TEACHING READING: MAKE IT FUNNY
Ridiculosity
“I love spaghetti. Do I wear spaghetti? No!”
“Ridiculosity” is a word I coined when my son Jonathan was little. Ridiculosity? Our kids love it. I kept that in the forefront of my mind when I taught Jonathan (DS, now 28) to read at 5. Whatever he thought was hilarious, I was going to use to teach him, and I cheer you on to do the same.
Look at the faces of an audience listening to a really great comedian: their entire consciousness is lasered on that guy with the mike. Total attention. That’s the state of enthusiasm that we want our kids to be in when we teach them reading, and humor is clearly a great way to get there.
Peanut butter’s on my underwear!
The Twilight Zone?
For those of you old enough to remember the old TV show, The Twilight Zone, here’s one for you to figure out: for the first dozen years or so that I spoke to parent and educator groups on reading, I would say, “Children with Down syndrome have a heightened sense of the ridiculous.” That’s probably obvious to anyone close to a person with Down syndrome, and I very much enjoyed stating what I felt was the truth.
Some years later, I was doing research on Dr. John Langdon Down, who was the first to observe the characteristics (though not the cause; that came much later) of what we now call Down syndrome. I stumbled on this quote attributed to him: “Individuals with Down syndrome have a lively sense of the ridiculous.” Whoa! Whether I momentarily stepped into The Twilight Zone, or just somehow got into “The Zone” and picked up that thought, I don’t know. But there you have it! Our kids excel in recognizing and appreciating the ridiculous.
Too much pizza!
Humor in Personal Books
When you’re creating personal books for your child, put in as much ridiculosity as you possibly can. Make it funny, make it hilarious. You alone know what will tickle your child’s funny bone, so aim for that when you’re creating beginning personal books for your emerging reader. (See my blog on how to make those personal books if you need a refresher.) Plan a book around something s/he loves, and then make it as ridiculous as you can. Your child will love it.
Making Jonathan’s personal books funny was easy; but when I decided to create books for other children with Down syndrome, I had to dig a little deeper. The illustrations you see here are some that I did for the early reading books that I now include in the Reading Bundles on my site. My aim is to “accidentally” teach children how to read while they’re laughing.
So go for it! Re-read my blog on personal books and piggyback your teaching on your child’s love of Ridiculosity!
