Literacy specialist Lois Letchford analyzes Dear Zoo, a 114-word children's book, and finds it packed with linguistic traps: over 40 pronouns and words with multiple meanings. The pronoun "he" shifts between animals, and words like "back" change meaning throughout, confusing early readers still building comprehension skills.
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Good morning, I'm Lois Letchford. I'm the Literacy Problem Solver and I'm here to talk about the book Dear Zoo. Dear Zoo is a book that's often used in early literacy and it runs 114 words or thereabouts, pretty close. And I want to look at the complexity of the language of such a simple book. So let me read just a few pages. Dear Zoo, and it says, from the zoo, and it's written by Rod Campbell. Dear Zoo, I wrote to the zoo to send me a pet. They sent me an elephant. He was too big. I sent him back. So they sent me a giraffe. He was too tall. I sent him back. So the book goes on and on with the repetitive phrase, he was too something, I sent him back, which looks fairly simple except when you realise that the I is going to be the same on every page. He was too big. He on this page is the elephant. He on the next page refers to the giraffe, and he on the next page refers to the lion. So every time you come to the word he, there's a change in meaning. As I said in the beginning, this book runs 114 words. There are over 40 words in this book that are either pronouns or have a word with multiple meanings, like the word Back. And back is coming continuously. When children struggle with language, we make assumptions about their comprehension and their understanding of a word like back. Do they mean, no, it means to send it back to the zoo? Or are they thinking my back or the back of your chair? So let's have a good think and a good look at what we are reading to our children and work out the complexities of what we think is something That is fairly simple. Thank you. Hit like, hit subscribe, and join me with all my videos. Thank you very much.
