Eating the Alphabet

Eating the Alphabet by Lois Ehlert. Red Wagon Books, 1996. ISBN 0-15-201036-X (Board book edition).

Reader's Annotation: Caution! Do not read this book if you are hungry. Ehlert's beautifully depicted fruits and vegetables may cause you to consider gnawing on the board pages.

Summary: Ehlert presents an alphabet book for the very young, where the letters are accompanied by her trademark style of illustration: vibrantly colored watercolor collage. Some of the fruits and vegetables will be quite familiar to young and old alike, while others, such as xigua, could be a new discovery for many readers.

It would be difficult to find a more delicious introduction to the concept of the alphabet and its ordered letters.

Critical Evaluation: The oversized text of the alphabet letters and the names of the fruits and vegetables are all displayed in both upper and lowercase print. This provides the reader with the option of focusing only on the letters for the youngest child, or of including an examination of the individual names while sharing the book with a slightly older child. This multi-level design allows a child's experience with the work to expand as they develop and gain more pre-literacy skills. 

Ehlert has captured the look of each type of food with her gloriously colored collage technique. While simple, the illustrations clearly demonstrate the essence of each fruit and vegetable so that they are easily recognizable.

Age or Interest Level: Ages 0 to 4

Awards: The picture book version of this title won the following awards:
Booklist Editors’ Choice, NCTE Notable Children’s Trade Book in the Language Arts, Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Gold Award, Parenting Reading Magic Award

Why Included? The colors and textures utilized by Ehlert in her watercolors are simply beautiful and are enjoyable to examine closely.

Endless Alphabet App

Endless Alphabet App created by the team at Originator, Inc. Available on iTunes for iPhone and iPad. $6.99

Annotation: Imagine: words like gargantuan and ruckus being easily tossed into everyday conversation by preschoolers. How could this be? Chalk it up to the positive influence of some silly vocabulary monsters in the Endless Alphabet app.

Summary: This is a cleverly designed interactive app which introduces letter sounds, spelling, and definitions of featured words. Over fifty vocabulary words are included with the app, and these are not typical beginner words like cat or dog. Instead, preschoolers are challenged with words such as demolish and bellow. As the scattered letters of the selected word are dragged to their proper place within the word, not only do they move and wiggle, but they produce their phonetic sounds.



Once the word has been completely filled in with its letters, the friendly monsters stampede past, cheering all the while, and then an animated short plays which demonstrates the definition of the vocabulary word.




Critical Evaluation: This app has been designed to move at the pace of each individual child. Navigation is intuitive, and children will move easily from the main menu where vocabulary words are selected to the individual word modules and back again. The animated monsters are eye-catching, and their antics while defining each word are extremely entertaining. The accompanying sound effects and music are not overpowering, and add an additional level of interactivity to the app.

While the app is priced higher than other similar educational games, I believe that the complexity of the learning experience make it worth the cost. Children not only will learn to recognize each letter, but will gain experience with the phonetic sounds of each, how the letters are put together to make words, and what the words mean, and all while having fun.

Originator has also released Endless Numbers, Endless Reader, and most recently, Endless Wordplay. These apps are wonderful tools to boost a child's reading and mathematical skills while developing a love of learning.

Age or Interest Level: Ages 3 to 5

Awards: 2013 App of the Year Runner-up ; App Store's Editor's Choice

Why Included? I purchased this app for my son a couple of years ago, and he really enjoyed making the words from the squiggly talking letters. An interactive app such as Endless Alphabet that can make learning so much fun is a valuable addition to any library's collection of resources.