Boo's Bad Day Blog Tour Stops Here

A writing colleague, Penny Lockwood, recently released a new, softcover picture book called, "Boo's Bad Day." Boo has been  busily making his rounds on his book release blog tour, and today is the day for his stop at my blog.

Over the past few months, I've written several posts about how to plan story times that incorporate sign language. In those posts I've typically focused on the books in my Story Time with Signs & Rhymes series, because the books in this series were designed to be signed along with. However, Boo's visit to my blog provides a great opportunity to share ideas for signing along with any book that you and your child enjoy together.

The first step is to start with a book that you and your child both enjoy and that you are confident reading. By this I mean, choose books that you are familiar with and that fit your child's interests and attention span. Start with stories that have shorter sentences and familiar vocabulary. It's also helpful if the pictures include images of words you already know the signs for (or are motivated to learn).

Classics like Goodnight Moon, Brown Bear, Brown Bear, and The Cat and the Hat are examples of books that are fun to read and easy to sign along with. Once you learn the sign for moon, bear, and cat, you will have an opportunity to use these signs over and over again as you read (and re-read) these books.  

Likewise, as you explore a new story, like "Boo's Bad Day," you can learn the signs for some of the familiar words in the story, such as outside, tree, and scared, and incorporate these words as you read. Another option is to learn the sign for the word where, and use that sign to tell your own story through the pictures in the book (i.e. "Where is Boo? There is Boo!  Where is Boo, now? Uh oh, Boo is outside."). You can also use the signs cat, dog and tree, and invite your child to "find the cat . . . find the dog . . . find the tree" when those images appear in the illustrations.

I hope you have fun signing along with your favorite books (and I hope Boo finds his way into the hands of young readers).

NOTE: If you're interested in learning more about Penny Lockwood's work, click here to link to yesterday's stop on Boo's blog tour (and Boo will be here tomorrow). As a fun extra, at the end of Boo's blog tour, author Penny Lockwood will be sending an autographed copy of Boo's Bad Day to one blog commenter (US Addresses only. If the name selected is outside of the US, a PDF copy of the book will be sent instead). I'd love to hear  some of your favorite books to sign along with. Share your ideas in the comment section below, and you will have the added bonus of being entered into Penny's drawing.