How the See abc's reading method began

Sherry has told you how her lovable characters came to be and now I would like to tell you how the See abc's reading method began. When my youngest child, Joni, was in Kindergarten learning the shapes and sounds of the alphabet, she would bring home papers with the shape of the letter at the top of the page and a picture beginning with that letter below it. This worked well as long as the picture clue was there, but when I wrote the letter without the clue, she was left wondering which picture clue went to which letter shape. There are 26 different letter shapes and 26 different picture clues. That's a hard matching job for most kids. All five of my children learned this way.


Then one day while working with Joni, I realized that all of my children learned the letter 's' fast and never forgot it. How come? It was because for 's', all I had to tell them was, "It looks like a snake and it sounds like snake." So, every time they saw the letter 's', in their imagination they could see a snake; they didn't have to search for anything. I decided to try that concept with all of the letters and I made each letter shape become its own clue. For example with letter 'a', the circle of the 'a' is an apple and the line is a worm. The results were amazing. Joni learned every letter solid in only two days and had a blast doing it because now it was a fun game of pretend and imagination. Then she got out her paper and pencil and starting writing the letters and turning them into the pictures herself. So, her reading was reinforcing her writing and her writing was reinforcing her reading. That's when I knew I had something really powerful in my hands! So, I put my little alphabet into book form, "ABC's See What They Say". Sherry tried it with her son, and saw how great it worked with him and she wanted to help me market my book. She then wrote a fun alphabet song to go along with my book and a numbers book based on the same concept as the letter book. We then had our books professionally illustrated. They are designed so that they are very interactive, using three tactile steps in teaching each letter or number. Over the years, I have come to find out how crucial it is to use all three of these steps to have the best results.


And so, the See abc's method was born. As time went on, I expanded the program. I will share more about the other books soon.

Doreese

Introduction to Tia and Bob Frog

Goooood Mornin'!
It's a beautiful sunny day and I feel energized about Tia and Bob Frog this morning. Let me tell you how Tia and Bob Frog (the main See abc's charactors came about). Tia is my daughter and when she was three her grandmother gave her a stuffed frog which she named Bob. Bob and Tia were best friends, everywhere Tia went she had Bob Frog. I have taught pre-school to all of my children so it seemed appropriate that I incorporate Bob Frog into a teaching tool to help Tia learn her colors, shapes, numbers etc... Thus the Tia and Bob Frog series of books was born.

Gumfounded was my first book to get published. This book tells about Tia having a mishap with a gob of gum someone had spit out on the ground. The gum sticks to her shoe and as she runs to school the gum collects litter. Soon Tia is on a MOUNTAIN of litter which is all tangled in the gum on her shoes. Once she gets to school all of the children help her put the litter in its right recycle bins. It was illustrated delightfully by Kirk Werner. I have written two other environmental books which are now illustrated and imletterated.

It is a riot going to schools and presenting these books and teaching children how to respect our earth. Kids LOVE them!!! You know anything is fun to learn about if it is presented in a humorous way.

I better quit blogging now and get my house clean. It's a MESS! I'm watching some of my grandkids today so I'm sure it won't stay clean for long, but heck, at least I'll know I had it clean at one point of the day!

Take care and join Doreese and I again in a couple of days. Toodles! Sherry

League of Utah Writers Roundup Conference

From Doreese: The writers conference was a lot of fun! Most of the authors there were still working on things. But even though I have completed my writing, there were still workshops that pertained to me. There was one on Public Relations and How to Talk to a Reporter.

The last class I went to was called "Awaken the Child Within" by Patricia Wiles. She said a couple of things that I thought were very thought provoking. She said, "Every day doors close for children, and it is our job as authors to open them", and "Entertainment is to children as rain is to flowers." Then she had us do an exercise that I am going to suggest that each of you do. Write down on a sheet of paper the following: Kindergarten, 1st, 2nd and on up to 6th, leaving a few lines in between each. Then list three things you can think of that happened to you during each grade. Try to remember your teacher's name. I was surprised at how doing this helped awaken the child within me. It brought back memories, both good and bad. Doing this will help you be able to better relate to your children and understand how they may be feeling.

Pictures:

Center - James Dashner and Doreese / James is from Georgia. He has written a 4-book series and is now finishing up a 3-book series. I bought the first of his 3-book series. It is called: The 13th Reality - The Journal of Curious Letters. I got to eat dinner with him and take a workshop from him. He's a very personable man.

Bottom - Doreese, Janet Jensen and Carolyn Campbell / These are two great writer friends. Janet's first novel has recently been published, and Carolyn has published over 800 magazine articles. She is the magazine queen! She has also published 3 books.

A Combined Effort

Doreese:
Hi, my sister Sherry and I are excited to have this blog to let you know what is going on with literacy, taking care of our earth and points of interest about ourselves. I developed the See abc's reading method and Sherry developed the 123 book to go along with it, the alphabet song and the loveable characters of Tia and her best friend Bob Frog.

Since we are both working on the See abc's reading program, we are going to use this blog together. Hopefully that will add some punch to it by having two different personalities contributing.

Tomorrow, I am going to be attending the League of Utah Writers yearly "Roundup" conference in Ogden, Utah. I'm very excited to go. It is going to be Fri. evening and all day on Sat. I'll share some of the most exciting points with you when I get back.

See abc's helps children read

Today See abc's set up its blog.