The title of my blog this week suggests a learning tool that stands tall and delivers essential literacy skills in a fun and engaging way. Parents—and grandparents who care for their grandchildren, as I do two days a week—respect a learning device that children request over and over again and that delivers essential literacy skills. Unless you’re a reading teacher, you might not know what those “essential literacy skills” are, so my purpose today is to outline how the Tag Reading System delivers on helping children learn to read and write. - Listening carefully is a crucial skill when it comes to learning to read and write. In both reading and writing, children must be able to listen carefully to the sounds within words, which is very hard to do! A word, like “dad” for example, isn’t heard in tiny sound bites, /d/ /a/ /d/, but as one pulse, “dad.” But “dad,” eventually, has to be read or written sound-by-sound. Any tool that helps children break words apart promotes this segmenting ability. Throughout the Tag library, activities in every book involve children taking words apart and putting them together again. Bravo.
- Knowing the names and sounds of all 26 letters of the alphabet enables reading and writing development. Letter names often contain the sounds they stand for (as the sound /b/ in B), so knowing letter names, and being able to say them quickly and automatically, promotes literacy. Many Tag stories (such as Ozzie and Mack and Chicka Chicka Boom Boom) through story line and/or book activities include opportunities that promote alphabet mastery.
- Stories have different structures, and when children experience different structures, it’s easier for them to read with understanding and to predict upcoming events. Many books in the Tag library have the problem/resolution structure. In The Golden Paddleball, the main character, Bloo, isn’t good at the sport. That’s his problem, which he solves. In The Little Engine that Could, our little gal suddenly “couldn’t.” Miss Spider, in Miss Spider’s Tea Party, can’t seem to get a bug to join her! Problems, all. But solutions are plentiful, and fun to discover.
- Vocabulary knowledge is crucial to understanding, and not considered a “tag-along” at LeapFrog. The Tag Reader introduces children to new vocabulary and includes word explorations, both within stories and in end-of-book activities. In Fancy Nancy at the Museum, children can learn the meanings of words like overjoyed, masterpieces and spectacular in particularly endearing ways.
So, for me, it’s Terrifically Tag! Bravo, LeapFrog.
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