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Only 37 percent of high school students score high enough on reading achievement tests to handle adequately college le... More
Summary: Sammy, like all snails, was slow. No one seemed to mind but Sammy. One day, while he was inching along, he started looking at the things around him. He was so inspired that he started teaching the other snails about what he saw. This is a story that helps children understand why they don't need to be like
Type of Reading: bedtime story, family reading, anytime reading, playtime reading, read aloud book, middle grade reader
Recommended Age: read together: 4 to 8; read youself: 7 to 9
Interest Level: 3 to 6
Reading Level: 2.4
Age of Child: Read with 6-year-old girl.
Little Kid Reaction: Because we kept having to adjust for the rhyme changes the first time we read it, our daughter lost interest. She had questions about some of the phrases.
Big Kid Reaction: This poem starts out like an easy reader, but then quickly picks up bigger words and adds more text to the page. The rhyming scheme is forced in a number of places, and the text takes leaps that are hard to explain to a child. Such as, how can he be a teacher if he's still a boy snail? Having an audio recording of the book will be helpful in bridging the gap between the age of the audience and the book's reading level.
Pros: Lots of white space and lovely water color illustrations create a nice setting for a poem about learning that we are all unique.
Cons: As the poem goes on, you get the sense that Sammy didn't like being slow or that he didn't feel he had any talents, but there is nothing about either of these things in the beginning.
Borrow or Buy: Skip. There are other stronger stories and rhymes about being true to yourself and discovering your talents.
Educational Themes: This is Sammy's story. Without contrasts (i.e., the feats of other snails) it is hard to use this for discussing how you discover your own talents. That said, with an audio recording, kids can follow along and practice their reading and vocabulary development.
Notes: This book has an audio download you can retrieve from the publisher's website.
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