Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb (Bright & Early Books)

I keep this book with a drum in my room at school. This book is so useful with its use of strong rhythm, hammy pictures and repetitive language. I usually use this as one of my earlier readaloud books in the beginning of the school year. It's an excellent source for discussion about body parts. The children are excited about coming up to the front and having their turn pounding dum ditty dum ditty dum dum dum on the drum. Acting out the hi, bye, and shaking hands, as well as the humming helps with understanding these actions. A verrrryyy fun book!

Researchers constantly find that reading to children is valuable in a variety of ways, not least of which are instilling a love of reading and improved reading skills. With better parent-child bonding from reading, your child will also be more emotionally secure and able to relate better to others. Intellectual performance will expand as well. Spending time together watching television fails as a substitute. To help other parents apply this advice, as a parent of four I consulted an expert, our youngest child, and asked her to share with me her favorite books that were read to her as a young child. Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb was one of her picks.What is most unusual about this early reader is that it adds a beat to make the material more memorable and fun. The story has monkeys using their hands to beat on various drums. All children will find themselves pounding on something to match the rhythm of the rhyme. "Rings on fingers. Rings on thumb. Drum drum, Drum drum, Drum drum drum." (By the way, for parents old enough to remember Ringo Starr, this does seem to be a satire on Ringo here.) That use of drumming adds a useful kinesthetic clue that will ingrain the material faster. Children start to learn to read by memorizing, and this book is unusually well designed to assist in that process.But the main thing is that it is fun to read this book. You would have a smile on you face if you read it alone. The smile will broaden when you read with your child, in response to her or his pleasure in the book. That's a great gift for you, as well!There are lots of jokes about musicians in here that you should enjoy. One of the beats is a play on the word "ditty" for a song. "Dum ditty, Dum ditty, Dum dum dum." Naturally, you can also read this as "Dumb song, Dumb song, Dumb dumb dumb." Your child will never know what you are laughing about. After you have finished enjoying this very helpful and entertaining book, I suggest that you try your hand at writing and illustrating a similar one. One possible theme could be built around bees buzzing. This book alludes to humming, so you could work with that, as well. Have many laughs, and be encouraged as a reading tutor!

Grandma dug out the old dog-eared copy of this book for the 12 month old grandson. Now he is 18 months and we are very relieved to find that it is still in print, because the old one has finally been loved to pieces. The book doesn't look especially unusual, just a bunch of cute monkeys, but the rhythms are fantastic. It doesn't have flaps, or textures, or bright colors, but this was the first book he would really listen to and he still wants it read to him daily. He has many books that he loves to look at, but this is the best one for listening. The old book isn't a board book and we will replace it with the same size book. We are finding that often the board book pictures lose impact because of the reduced size.

You know how some children's books you've read so many times that you just cringe when your toddler picks them out? This one I still like to read. It was a favorite of my daughter's at 8 months and is still a favorite at 20 months.

I can read it with my eyes closed. It was my boys favorite book when they were younger.