Our monthly reading guides help enhance your Ranger Rick Jr. subscription by recommending ways you can use the magazine to encourage a strong foundation for your child’s literacy development.
There is a lot of great reading material in this month’s issue of Ranger Rick Jr. Our focus article this month, Ricky and Pals in The Jokers, involves a mystery that Ricky and his friends set out to follow. There are so many stories to read with your child to encourage the further understanding of this topic! Some examples of good mystery books to share with your child are: Gretta Lou and the Dog Collar Mystery by Wendy Peek and Ace Lacewing Bug Detective by David Biedrzycki.
These stories, and others like them, provide a great opportunity to introduce some new vocabulary words to the children. Here are some examples with child-friendly definitions to use with the stories:
Mystery: something that no one can explain; a question that has no answer
Investigate: collect clues to solve the mystery
Detective: someone who uses clues to solve the mystery
Once you and your child have finished reading all of the wonderful pages of this month’s issue of Ranger Rick Jr. magazine, you can use the pages to create new literacy activities. Work with your child to cut out any big letters that can be found throughout the pages. Then, use the letters that you have collected to try to assemble them into new words; maybe you’ll even be able to spell your name using these letters! This activity can be challenging but it will also be fun and exciting when your child builds words out of these letters.
Take the activity a step further by helping your child copy the words you create onto a piece of paper so that, when you scramble and reuse the letters, you can keep track of all the words you came up with. Your child will gain practice writing letters and putting them together to form words. Have your child draw a picture to represent what each word means. Then, you can compile the pictures together and create a vocabulary book. Creating a book with your child will help him or her develop an understanding of the characteristics of print materials, for example: the title, author, and the left to right direction that the pages turn.
Prepared by Ellie Tunison
Prekindergarten Reading Encouragement Project (PREP) Intern
Early Childhood Education Major, University of Delaware
PREP – Helping childhood literacy one family at a time.