Dr. Seuss ABC

Six weeks of silly sentences from “Dr. Seuss’s ABC” supplied our children with more than an introduction to the alphabet. Instead of television and Sesame Street, we went down the street to the library and loaded up every week on books, “Mom the Magnificent Reading Machine” – preferred to have a fresh set of books on hand when a child said, “please read to me.”
As mother of a ready-made family, I quickly discovered the wonders of children’s literature for my four-year-old – especially Dr. Seuss’s ABC Book.
As many times as I have read it since then, I should have bought a copy of the book with my first couch student. Instead I checked and re-checked it out of the library every time I decided it was time to teach one of the children to recognize the letters in the alphabet.
It took a few readings to realize just how many things I could teach with that one book. Of course I pointed out the big and the little letters, but we also worked on numbers as we counted David Donald’s dozen doughnuts, four fluffy feathers on a Fiffer-feffer-feff, ten tired turtles on a tuttle-tuttle tree, nine new neckties and a nose. The alliteration also included a lesson in colors with an orange owl, red rhinoceros, pink pajamas and a yellow yak. For ‘L’ I touched his left leg and read, “left leg” – usually followed with my added, “right leg,” and tap on his other leg.
As Seuss progresses through the alphabet he provides periodic reviews of previous letters that parallel the traditional ABC song. By the time my first couch student could recognize his letters, he had pretty well conquered the song as well.
Oh the wonderful things I could do with Dr. Seuss… letters, numbers, colors, phonics, spatial differences and the alphabet song. And, all it took was six weeks of reading the same book every day to the same child – along with a couple other fun books.
Before the six weeks were up, “Mom the Magnificent Reading Machine” muttered in her pillow, “many mumbling mice are making midnight music in the moonlight … mighty nice.”
The book became a standard in our home for teaching children their letters. The learning time varied with each child – one child, in particular, left me wondering how much he had learned when a friend stopped over to chat. My current couch scholar showed her our book of the month.
She smiled, opened to the back of the book where all the letters are arranged, pointed at them one by one and asked him to identify each symbol. He eagerly played “the letter test” game as I stood back and watched. I held my breath and shook my head slightly when she pointed to R. I knew he did not know that one yet.
He answered “R” without hesitation.
Thanks to a daily dose of Dr. Seuss, he had nailed the alphabet.
Having read the book 40 days with so many, I can recite it without the book in hand.
I only discovered how completely the memorization had taken root when my grandchildren reached ABC learning time. My 27 year-old son and I swapped Dr. Seuss quotes, relishing shared knowledge and the experience of teaching a child. I knew the circle had come full round when we finished, “Big Z, little z, what begins with Z? ….. I do, I’m a Zizzer, Zazzer, Zuzz as you can plainly see.”