Children's book Review.

The books that I am reviewing really help with sequencing.  They are Inside a House That is Haunted There was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bat.  Both books are about Halloween and start off with just one thing and add on as the story continues.   Sequencing is a skill that as a reader can be very difficult if you lack the comprehension.

For Inside a House That is Haunted The main concern is the expressions that each character has might scew understanding.  Words like swooped, jolted and startled.  Another aspect that might cause confusion with comprehension is that on one page the story from the past pages are written without periods and are a long sentence.  This is because the story is a Rebus Read-Along which is continuous building story.  Also the unreal nature of the characters in the book might cause confusion.  It is helpful that these characters are all Halloween characters it might help with the understanding that these characters are not real and that spiders and cats cannot talk.  It is also helpful that this book  has pictures representing the objects that are in the sentence so the hand in the sentence "here is the hand that knocked on the door outside the house that is haunted"  the Hand is an actual monster hand not the word.  This really helps for comprehension and for learners that might not be strong readers.  The circle asspect of the story is also great for comprehension because it provides a chance for the student to become more familiar with words through repetition.

The second book There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly is a book that also works on sequencing.   This old lady swallows a bat and then swallows all kinds of objects to get rid of the bat.  This book may be hard for ELLs and comprehension for a variety of reasons.  The idea of a person swallowing any object is very abstract.  Students might question why a woman would swallow anything other than food might hurt comprehension.  The students might be so stuck on the lady swallowing anything that they might not be able to move on.  There are also a variety of words that are a challenge for ELLs.  The words “shush”, “groan”, “rattle” are all very hard to relate to and to explain.  The word “shush” is used as a owl “shushing” a bat inside the lady’s stomach.  The story rhymes which is very helpful for ELLs, this makes the story flow and the higher the fluency the higher comprehension. 



References
Capucilli, A. S. (1998). Inside a House That Is Haunted: A Rebus Read-Along Story (Rebus Read-Along Stories). New York: Cartwheel Books.
Colandro, L. (2002). There was an Old Lady who Swallowed a Bat. New York: Scholasti