I miss Reading Rainbow. Last year, the well-loved children’s show was canceled, and it makes me sad to think that some kids will grow up without the experience of sitting down to watch Reading Rainbow and eating macaroni and cheese or celery with peanut butter and raisins. (Man, I love childhood lunches. Ants-on-a-Log was/is awesome.) Even though LeVar Burton is no longer reading stories on PBS, Scholastic Books has released a series of short children’s stories on DVD. Five Little Monkeys tells three classic stories and teaches children reading and American Sign Language vocabulary. While it is no replacement for Reading Rainbow, I am happy to learn that Scholastic is utilizing different ways to teach new reading vocabulary and introduce kids to American Sign Language.
All the stories on here are pretty straightforward. Five Little Monkeys Jumping On the Bed is about five monkeys who disobey their mom and jump on the bed. One by one, they fall off the bed and bump their heads. Little Quack is about a mother duck encouraging her ducklings to leave their nest and swim out on the lake. Little Quack is the youngest of the bunch and afraid to leave the nest even after his siblings venture out. In the end, he works up the courage to swim out and has fun swimming with his mother and siblings. In There’s Something In My Attic, a young girl is frightened by a noise from the attic, and she discovers that a monster is stealing her toys. When he takes her favorite teddy bear, she stands up to the monster and scares him back to the attic.
All three stories are sweet, entertaining for their age group, and teach lessons about listening to parents, being brave, and standing up to kid monsters, whether they be imaginary creatures or schoolyard bullies. Compared to other children’s entertainment, this isn’t the best I have ever seen, but it is a great DVD to watch with kids and learn along with them.
In each story, there is a narrator reading the story along with the on-screen highlighted text. This part teaches kids reading vocabulary, and parents can then go back and read through the book with the child afterward. What makes Five Little Monkeys better than just another read-along DVD is the ASL element. All of these ASL storytellers are expressive and fun to watch interpret these stories. Instead of distracting from the images and the story, they added to my enjoyment of the DVD.
The other parts of the DVD that I really liked were the special features that expanded the ASL education element. Each story has a series of sign language words that are used in the story, and they teach the story vocabulary word-by-word. Coming from a family of teachers, I can appreciate the learning potential of this DVD, and I can see how parents can get involved and practice the sign language vocabulary with their kids.
While none of the stories are anything really profound or unusual, they will be a fun way to introduce kids to new reading and ASL vocabulary, and I applaud Scholastic for stepping up and finding new ways to teach kids while keeping them entertained.
DVD Bonus Features
Along with the ASL vocabulary lessons, there is a trailer for other Scholastic books on DVD including Where the Wild Things Are, Corduroy Bear, and Harold and the Purple Crayon. Watching it was a big nostalgia trip for me, and I hope that Five Little Monkeys is a success so that Scholastic will continue to release some of my favorite childhood books in DVD format.
"Five Little Monkeys Jumping On the Bed" is on sale September 7, 2010 and is not rated. Animation, Children & Family, Education. Written by Eileen Christelow, Lauren Thompson, Mercer Mayer. Starring Allison Karman, Manny Hernandez, Missy Keast, Ryland Hale.
