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| Professor
Toshio Okazaki- Tsukuba University |
"Children quickly become involved with the Reading Tree characters. Even
if they can't read the text in the books at first, the children can follow the
humorous and carefully considered pictures, and they are encouraged to talk.
As they become more and more interested in the adventures of Kipper and his friends,
they want to read more and more of the books and without consciously trying,
they begin to acquire English reading ability. If you would like to give your
children a taste of the ways that native English speakers learn to read English,
I recommend that you try the Oxford Reading Tree." |
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| Kevin
Sensei's Reading Time - Using Big Books |
"I usually hold the books in one hand and use a finger pointer to point
at useful nouns or direct the students attention. I use a lot of questions, sometimes
in Japanese, sometimes in English, depending on the students' level. I try to
build context and ask them "What will they do next?" or "What
do you think will happen next."
Before we begin a book, we look at the cover and imagine what the
story will be about. The Stage 1 (Kipper Storybooks) were really
popular at the kindergartens with four and five year old's. I think
they relate to Kipper. I never "read" the books. I tell
the story in my own words with as much English as they can understand."
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| "C"-chan
loves the Reading Tree! |
"The stories are so interesting! As soon as they arrive, my daughter ('C'-chan,
age 6) is begging me to read them to her. We went through 30 books (Stages 4
- 7) one after the other. I was reading for over 2 hours.
A few days later, 'C'-chan wrote her first 'Kipper' story - the first
time she had ever written anything. The Reading Tree is both entertaining
and educational, if you look closely at each page you can see the
skill of the writers and illustrators in developing children's reading
abilities while they have fun."
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| "Oh
no! Bubbles!" |
"Not having read much English before, I was slightly nervous when I started
to read the Reading Tree to my 2-year old son, 'Y'-kun. But 'Y'-kun loves the
stories - shouting out 'Wa-oh', 'Oh no! and so on as we read.
The most interesting time was when we read the story 'Kipper's Birthday'.
In the story, Kipper's Dad puts too much washing powder in the dishwasher
and bubbles fill the whole house. 'Y'-kun suddenly shouted out the
sentence 'Oh no! Bubbles!" We are having great success with
the Oxford Reading Tree."
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| A
letter to Floppy |
"Today, my 4 year old son, 'R'-kun, wrote a letter to Kipper - I was really
surprised. It said:
'Hello Floppy
I like your BOOK.
The story was about a fire.'
These phrases appear a lot in the stories, but I was surprised to
see 'R'-kun writing them himself. Everyday, he plays the Reading
Tree CD for himself and listens to the stories. He has started reading
stories to me that I haven't read to him!"
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