Alligator Arrived with Apples: a Potluck Alphabet Feast was penned by Crescent Dragonwagon with pictures by Jose Aruego and Ariane Dewey. A huge group of animal friends gather for a Thanksgiving feast and eat their way from A to Z. Alligator arrived with apples and allspice. Bear brought banana bread, biscuits and butter. Zebra zipped over a zaftig zucchini. An epic meal to go down in history! This book is an entertaining read-aloud and is about nothing if not alliteration—a phonological awareness skill that contributes to a good foundation for reading. So many children’s books have alliteration and rhyming elements, so when you’re reading them aloud to your children, you’re naturally supporting their pre-reading skills!
Alliteration is a phonological skill that contributes to emerging reading skills, but when your child becomes of reading age, some of the more significant phonemic awareness skills that contribute to a strong reading foundation are segmenting and blending. Click here for a post about phonemic awareness from a couple of years ago if anyone’s interested in learning more about it.