The Jackpot for Teaching Materials

Today's Tip comes courtesy of tutor Eva Bellinger. The books she recommends are nicely organized by phonetic concepts--word families--and easy to find. I have included links to Barnes and Noble that show you what the books look like. You will also find a link to The Learning Shop, a store that sells materials for the do-it-yourself teacher or tutor.

I was looking at children’s books at Borders East and the young lady in the Children's Books dept got as excited as if we were shopping for her own student. She found Saggy Baggy Elephant and Tawny Scrawny Lion with CDs. So Rosa can listen to the reading over and over. Lena told me that the Little Golden books get reprinted in August for Christmas. Richard Scarry’s children’s books are also being reprinted. Everything in Richard Scarry is present tense, with lots of vocabulary labeled, and they're great browsing books (libros para hojear). So Rosa and Edwin can tackle one page of Richard Scarry together at a time.

Also, for your own info to share with your own little boy, Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel and three other classics by Virginia Lee Burton have come out in one volume. So hie thee hence to Borders and splurge!

Rosa and I slogged through Tawny Scrawny and Saggy Baggy, writing vocabulary translations and pronunciations in as needed. They're my books, with my name on them, and there's a specific place to keep them, so little Edwin doesn't squirrel the books away in his room as he did with the library books! And Rosa can keep them and work on them as long as necessary.

We're also using English for Everyday Activities, and going over and over and over the simple past tense (lessons 12 and following).

The Bob books are at The Learning Shop. Also, I was able to order English Pronunciation For Spanish Speakers secondhand, so that should go together well with the Bob Books. That, plus my home school spelling manual, should go a long way with the vowels.

Thought, through, though, although, etc are driving Rosa crazy right now. Lots of those in Saggy Baggy and Tawny Scrawny, so she'll get lots of work on them! We hammered at the phrases "Think it through" and "Think it over."

I have given Rosa a pile of homework for while I'm gone. In addition to Saggy Baggy and Tawny Scrawny, I told her to get a newspaper and also to listen to TV news. We'll see if she gets that together.