Celebrating Dr. Seuss's Birthday
Date :
Wednesday, April 06 2011
Source:
Autourina Mains
In March, Dr. Seuss’ birthday is celebrated across America (he was born March 2, 1904). Have you ever wondered why Dr. Seuss’ books are so celebrated and popular with educators?? After all, most of his books are rather silly. He wrote fun and silly rhymes and that is perhaps the reason for their popularity among educators. Aside from the nursery rhymes, Dr. Seuss provided creative and imaginative rhymes that make learning phonics and developing early literacy skills an enjoyable task for young readers.
Learning to rhyme is one of the most important skills young readers can develop. Rhyming helps the young reader recognize that words share common sounds and that rhyming words often share common letter sequences. So a child that has strong rhyming skills realizes that if he knows how to spell cat then he can spell words that rhyme with cat….hat…mat…rat, etc. The same skill applies to reading as well because if the child can read the word ball, then he/she can read words that rhyme with it… wall…call…tall…mall, etc.
Rhyming also helps the young reader break down words into smaller parts which is a necessary skill for reading and writing. Rhyming teaches children about the sound of language or phonemics. Phonemes are the smallest unit of sound that makes up words. In addition to all this, rhyming introduces the reader to the rhythm of the language. It also strengthens the reader’s ability to predict (very important skill for reading fluency).
No wonder Dr. Seuss has been such a celebrated author. With his silly rhymes, he has brought much fun, imaginative characters and creativity to young readers. We had a lot of fun at our Center celebrating his birthday. The children baked cup cakes, and set up a huge birthday bash. I hope you will plan on celebrating Dr. Seuss birthday and books as well.