Reading in Full Color
When my oldest child was learning to read, it was a real challenge for me.
I mean, teaching a child to read is always a job that takes time, dedication, and love. But? My daughter was an artist-in-the-making. She wanted books that had visual interest. And she was—I learned later—also a writer-in-the-making. She wanted books with interesting and playful language.
These qualities can be hard to come by in the learn-to-read genre!
As my daughter tells it now, she suffered through the simple language and the uninviting illustrations of learn-to-read series that shall remain unnamed. (Sorry sweetheart, belatedly!)
For children like my daughter, I eventually wrote A Is for Azure: The Alphabet in Colors.
It’s a collaboration with an ink artist, and it’s a real visual delight. Children meet their basic colors in print and image—colors like yellow, orange, and green. But they also meet colors with interesting and playful names like cranberry, emerald, and heliotrope. There’s a kind of poetry to the text that infuses life into the reading experience. And color-coding helps children track and remember their letters.
My daughter wishes A Is for Azure existed when she was learning to read. Ah, well. The book came on the scene far, far after she needed to learn her letters and colors!
In lieu of having had that early experience with Azure, my daughter is here now reading some of the more unusual colors to you…
Children Learn Better Through Complexity
Learning to read is, itself, the most complex task a child will undertake. The task involves multiple brain regions, working in concert. Learning to read also requires certain parts of the brain to mature before reading “clicks.”
You might think that adding complexity to an already complex task would make learning to read harder. In fact, it can make it easier, for reasons we’ll explore over time here at The Reading Teacher.
In the meantime, if you are a parent, grandparent, teacher or friend with a child in your life, we hope you’ll explore A Is for Azure with them. And enjoy. :)
