Teaching Reading with Dr. Seuss Books

When I was younger I could never understood why people liked Dr. Seuss books. I just thought they were silly nonsense books. I still think that they are a little silly, but I've since come to truly appreciate these books as a wonderful tool for helping struggling students. Another belief I had before becoming a teacher was that students just memorized Dr. Seuss books and that they were not really reading. While it is true that students do often memorize these books, I came to realize that this is exactly what I wanted them to do as long as they were actually looking at the words and not the ceiling. I have seen that using these books has helped my students become stronger readers as well as gain confidence in their ability to read.

I often change up the way I use these books, but I thought I'd share a couple ideas for using them. Last year I used Green Eggs and Ham as a classroom book. I had it on cassette (remember those), I had it on my computers, I had it on my Kindle, and I even had it on my iPad. The iPad app is what really got my class going. I projected the app onto my white board and we read the book together. Then several more times throughout the week. After that we began having Green Eggs and Ham time. Students would choose their way to listen to or read the book. I have several copies of this book, but I also made other Dr. Seuss books available during this time. My struggling students benefitted from the repetition and all of the partner and audio supports that were provided. I also used this time to pull them and check in on how they were doing with this book.

This year my students needs are a little different, so I've been pulling my struggling students for 1-1 work. They are working on Go, Dog, Go, which is a level 1.2. This book allows them to work on both sight words and decoding skills, so I have found it to be a good book for them to start with. I call one student at a time and have them read to me for about 5 minutes. It is just enough time to provide them the coaching they need on specific reading skills and help them to be successful. I mark the page they are on with a sticky. The next day they reread to that page and then a couple more pages. Since they are building fluency, it isn't really taking any longer. Finding the time to pull them hasn't been that difficult either, since it is only for a small period of time.

 

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