A Book to Read Together

Here is a fun idea I stumbled into a few years ago.  On a family vacation, I made this on a whim for my nieces and son, all of whom were on their way to becoming good readers.  This gave us hours of entertainment.

I made a small book with precycled paper (fold each page in half, ink side in and blank side out, and staple several pages together along the edge to make the book).  I also used a good, dark pen.  The title of the book was, "A Book to Read Together".

I asked the kids if they'd like to read the book with me, and they all agreed, yes.  So I opened to the first page and said, "Can you read this?".

The first page said in large, easy-to-read letters, "When?", which the kids dutifully read aloud.  So I said, "Well, right now.  Go ahead; read it!"  They giggled and said, louder, "When?".  I said, "Whenever you're ready!  Just take a good look, and read it!"  After a few iterations of this, I made an excuse to turn to the next page, saying, "Well, let's just read this next page then.  Anika, can you read this?".  She read, "Not now, later."  So I said, "Okay, then, I'll come back to you eventually.  How about you, Janelle?"

You can see how this goes.  The kids were in hysterics.  Here are what some of the other pages said:

• I can't read that.
• I'm bored.
• You have a big nose.
• Can we stop now?
• Is it my turn yet?
• Let's read this again!

It was fun coming up with responses to the kids ("Now, honey, that's not a nice thing to say to me.  You wouldn't like people making fun of your nose, would you?  Maybe we'll have another child take a turn at reading now.")  

This book is cheap.  It's easy to make and highly interactive.  After I read it through with them once, they took it over and read it with one another, taking turns being the "asker".  It was just too funny watching them.

The End.