Reading, Comprehension, and Art

While searching the internet for an idea for a new blog post I ran across an excellent newsletter dated September 1, 2007, from the University of Illinois at Chicago. STEP=UP, Special Teachers Exceptional Pupils = Urban Promise. This newsletter perfectly expresses the connection between "Add Your Own Art Children's Books" and reading comprehension.

"Teacher, and art therapist Ellen Holtzblatt enumerates three central ideas to consider when interweaving art into the curriculum to facilitate comprehension: students can use imagery, students can demonstrate and form meaning from the text(s), and build community through doing and sharing art. “I usually use a combination of reading, discussion, art and writing,” she explains.  “I start with text and then use a combination of the other 
modalities to deepen the students' experience.  Art bypasses verbal limitations and intellectual expectations.”



Art does more than illustrate learning, Ms. Holzblatt adds.  Art enhances learning.  The process of creating can be much more important than the product, and that process can be seen as a valid tool to understand students’ meaning-making. Students will feel safer using art in this capacity if they know that they are not being judged critically on aesthetics.



Expressions through art allow students to connect sensory images with multiple literacy skills and knowledge. Storyboarding is a terrific strategy for this, and can be used across subject matter. For example, students could create a series of images to reflect the plot of a story or the viewpoint of people during a certain time period."


You can read this entire article here 


By Jeannee` DeWolfe






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Art & Comprehension Skills

Children have to remember what they read to illustrate the blank frames in the book. It's all about comprehension. The more children comprehend the faster they learn. So it would be advantageous for parents and teachers to use this book to build comprehension skills.

This book is also an art book. Children use their artistic ability to illustrate their book. No matter the skill level, they will be proud to show the book they illustrated to family and friends.

If the illustrations are sent to me via email I will post them here. Add the child's name, and anything else you wish for me to post along with the drawing. Please feel free to send as many sketches as you wish.

By Jeannee` DeWolfe

addyourownart@yahoo.com

How Billy Chicken Toes Became a Book

When I was a kid I used to go to my aunt and uncle’s farm to play with my cousin. We would play in the barn, up in the hay loft. Sometimes we’d climb up on the conveyor belt to get into the hay loft. We’d walk around the pasture and I would have to watch out for the cow patties. I would side step one pile to step into another one. Being a city girl I wasn’t as sure-footed as my country cousin. I also stepped into a few small spots of quicksand. They were small and could only take a foot, not a whole body.

In the barn yard there were kittens running around. We’d try to catch them and every now and then we would catch a couple of the little furry critters. We would sit there petting and playing with them for hours.

I never wanted to go near the pig pen, funny thing was, my cousin never wanted to either. I never really cared for the chickens much, but I loved the little chicks. The chicks, when they were old enough would come out of the chicken coop and we would play with them too. There was this one chick who would always walk away from the others and we would have to go get it and put it back with the others. The second we turned our backs the little stinker would go off on it’s own again. We always had to make sure that we put the little chick back in the hen-house before we went to do something different.

I first wrote about Billy Chicken Toes a good twenty years ago. It started out as a verbal story I made up out of my head to tell my children. Day after day they would come to me and ask me to tell them the story of Billy Chicken Toes. I would change the story from time to time so they wouldn’t become bored with it. When I got my first computer I wrote the story and saved it on a floppy disk. In that story poor Billy died in the end. He died over and over as I told the story to my kids. We lived in a city and I didn’t want my children walking off to do who knows what, so I used the story to teach them that anything could happen if you just wander off.

When I decided to turn Billy into a book I figured Billy couldn’t die. How would I be able to write a series of books about Billy’s adventures if he died in the first book? So Billy doesn’t die he just wanders off and has one adventure after another.

By Jeannee` DeWolfe

Add Your Own Art Children's Books

I can’t draw. Well, I guess I could but I don’t think anyone would take me serious if I had illustrated my book. I agonized for weeks about how I was going to illustrate my book. This was going to cost me a lot of money, which I didn’t have.

I mentioned in the previous post that I drive a school bus. I haven’t worked in the summer for three years now, this summer being the third one. There was no way I could afford to pay someone to illustrate my book. I racked my brain trying to figure out this problem. I prayed for help and it wasn’t long before I got an answer. It was like someone turned on a light bulb.

Why not let the children who would be reading my book illustrate their book themselves? That was it! The answer to everything. That was when Add Your Own Art Children’s Books was born. Let me tell you that this book in no way is a coloring book. It is a children’s story book first and foremost. It is an interactive story book, with out the digital technology which means, no batteries are needed.

Now that my book has finally been released to the public I’m a little anxious to see what people think about it. I would love some feedback from anyone who’s purchased the book. And please let me know of any ideas for more adventures for Billy to have in the future. I would also love to see some of the works of imagination that my story has brought forth from it’s readers.

By Jeannee` DeWolfe

Email me at: addyourownart@yahoo.com and I will post the pictures on this blog.

The Adventures of Billy Chicken Toes & The Wolf

I’ve been trying to work on my new book for days without any luck. The word procrastination is written on my forehead. So… I guess I’ll write about the book I’ve already written. The title of the one and only book I wrote that’s been published is…  The Adventures of Billy Chicken Toes & The Wolf: Add Your Own Art Children’s Books.

This book was written with 2nd graders and special needs children in mind. This is the first book in a series of books under the subtitle of: Add Your Own Art Children’s Books. The whole thought behind Add Your Own Art is a whole learning experience. It is to teach your child comprehension. Your child reads the book then draws pictures in the blank picture frames located in various places throughout the book. This builds their comprehensive skills, and art is fun. They get to illustrate their own book. This gives them a unique one of a kind children’s book.

I do more than just write, I drive a school bus. I have two separate school runs. One is for special needs children and the other is for Universal PreK. The head of the Universal PreK is a retired school teacher. I don’t know what grade she used to teach. The day I showed her my  proof copy she asked if she could have it. I would have given it to her, but it was the only copy I had. That wasn’t the only reason I didn’t want to part with the book. I had overlooked a typo on the dedication page. My daughter’s name was spelled wrong and it was my own fault. I had gone over and over that book before I sent it to the publisher, not to mention how many times I went over it with them.

Anyway… The point I was trying to make before I started rambling was that when I showed her the book she looked stunned. Her mouth dropped open and she looked at me and looked back at the book and started looking through the pages. She said, “You wrote this?” I said that I had indeed written the book. She was in awe of the whole idea of Add Your Own Art. She thought it was a unique way to build comprehension skills. I couldn’t get the smile off my face the whole time we were together.

I would love for this series of books to get into the school system. One way or another I will see it happen. Starting with Jamestown Public Schools. *crosses fingers*

 By Jeannee` DeWolfe