The Cow Who Clucked

Fleming, Denise. The Cow Who Clucked. Holt, 2006.

Being a new dad I am privy to a wide array of new books that cater to a child that is very young.  At this stage in my son's life, he is almost five months; bright pictures capture his gaze and often excite him.  I want to encourage a strong sense of joy in his life when it comes to reading and my wife and I have made every attempt to read books to him and allow him to see the pictures as we read.  When I first began my teaching career I was an early literacy teacher for preschool children.  My job was part of a grant that instituted a program known as Early Reading First into preschools across Whitley County.  The idea was to have our children be exposed to a literature rich environment in hopes of making them readers once they moved into kindergarten, first grade and so on.  The Cow Who Clucked was a new book during this time and my students loved it then just as my son seems to love it now.

The premise of the story is simple: A cow has a dream that she was a mother hen and when she awakes she finds that her moo has been lost and she now clucks like a chicken.  The book shows pictures of her search to find the missing moo.  The cow speaks with an assortment of barnyard animals only to have them reply in their own animal language. 

I used this book in a couple of different ways when I taught the preschool children.  One strategy I used was to read the book first so I could acquaint the children with the story.  Then, I would reread the story and each time the cow would speak to another animal I would have the children answer her with a quack or a maa.  This kept their little minds engaged and also helped them remember parts of the book.  The other strategy I used was to have my children tell the story to the class.  This worked after reading the book several times and was very fun for the students and myself.  This can be used up into kindergarten and I have also used it sparingly with my special education students that are in first grade as a beginning book to build their independent reading confidence.

Finally
, I enjoy using the book with my little boy because he loves the pictures and it gives me a break from watching Mickey the Mouse.