BO, GO UP!

Imagine you’re learning to read a new language. How would you do it? First you’d learn the alphabet, if it has one. Then you’d string letters into simple words and read stories to get familiar with the words and how they’re used. That seems hard to me. But it would be even harder if you’d never learned a language before. And what if you were only a little kid? That would be a big challenge. But—think about it—that’s what we expect children to do routinely to learn reading. I think we should do whatever we can to make this big leap easier for kids. We as adults have experience with reading, and we’re older; we should take the burden off kids and do the hard work of WRITING stories so they’ll be easy for kids to READ. How? Well, using short words might help. They’re probably easier to learn than long words. But children’s books are often peppered with long words like “elephant” and “xylophone”, which is fine if adults are reading TO children. But though I like elephants and xylophones, and even elephants playing xylophones, for kids to learn how to read, long words are probably not ideal. When I was teaching my own children to read, I looked for books with only short words. But I had trouble finding books like that. Could I write one myself? If I limited word length to 3 letters, could I write a story? Sure. What about 2 letters? That would be a challenge. There are so few 2-letter words to work with. But I juggled them until I came up with a story, with characters, action, and even humor. I found Joanna Pasek, who beautifully illustrates children’s books in a semi-realistic style I liked, so we set to work, eventually producing our book, “WE GO TO BO”: wegotobo.com. Teachers who saw it told me it would be even easier for children to read if I used only the simplest sounds, and consistently used one sound for each letter. Should I write another 2-letter word book following that advice? Meanwhile, at a public reading of “WE GO TO BO”, I asked the children if someone could write a book with only 3-letter words, and they said yes. 2-letter words? Again yes. And then one smart aleck said 1-letter. My first impulse was to ignore him, but then I thought, “Why not 1-letter?” If I use the letter “C” to mean “S-E-E” and the letter “U” for “Y-O-U”, maybe. And if I write both a 1-letter word book and a new 2-letter book, maybe I can add a 3-letter book for a 1-2-3 series. Joanna and I finished the 3 books: “Y”, “BO, GO UP!”, and “Cat Egg”. They comprise “The Bo Books” series: bobooks.org. You can get the e-books for free and the paperback books at about my cost. The 1-letter word book is about a curious kid, asking her dad “why?” about things in the park. Why is the sky blue? Why is the grass green? He doesn’t know, but she opens his eyes to the world. With only 1-letter “words”, Joanna’s illustrations do the heavy lifting of telling this story. The 2-letter word book starts with children playing with a ball and ends with a much larger ball, because one kid’s mom runs a hot air balloon company and gives them a ride. Using all capital letters avoids confusing children about when to use upper case or lower case. In the 3-letter word book, one kid has a cat, and when her friends play with it, they think it’s laid an egg. Once children can read the alphabet, they can read the 1-letter word book, “Y”. That accomplishment gives them pride in reading a whole book, and gives them confidence to continue reading. Then they can read the 2-letter word book, “BO, GO UP!”. I used very simple vocabulary: less than half the alphabet, and only 11 different words. That makes it easy for kids to feel good that they can read a real book. Next, the 3-letter word book, “Cat Egg”, teaches 39 words, including 17 of the 100 most common words. Millions of people worldwide take a long time to learn reading, or never learn. Let’s remove obstacles to reading. Get The Bo Books, and tell your friends about them. Thank you.