“Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.” Dr. Suess
Happy birthday to the doctor, once upon a time I could recite many a Suess book...Green Eggs and Ham, Go Dog Go, Hop on Pop just to name a few. Now I have to look at the words which tells me there's not enough Suess in my life.
In the past year or so I've learned more about the components to building/becoming a successful reader and how wonderful these books are, beyond the pure fun of the characters they are perfect for beginning readers.
But did you know...Dr. Seuss didn’t just happen to write books that help emergent readers. He wrote The Cat in the Hat in response to a complaint by a man named John Hersey that the reading primers being used in schools (this was 1954) were full of “insipid illustrations” of “abnormally courteous children.” Dick and Jane anyone? Hersey said, “Why should [school primers] not have pictures that widen rather than narrow the associative richness the children give to the words they illustrate Dr. Seuss responded to this challenge by writing a book that came from a 223-word list of vocabulary words for school children. Because the list was so limiting, it took him 9 months to complete. The finished product–The Cat in the Hat.
and that's that.
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interesting... I actually love the Dick and Jane illustrations but they were a little too perfect!
ReplyDeleteWe quote the good Dr. Geisel constantly... most commonly, "Goodbye Thing, you sing too long!" and "little words, like 'if' and 'it'."
ReplyDeleteI *heart* Dr. Suess. I went to Benji's school on monday and made green eggs and ham for the kindergarteners to eat. That was the grossest looking stuff EVER!! :-) Most of the kids loved it, though. ;-)
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