100% Reading Engagement Techniques with Special Guest Joanne Cooper

Hey, welcome back to the No Problem Parenting Podcast. Hey, this is a fun, real quick episode where today I'm interviewing Joanne Cooper. Joanne is a retired teacher who now writes children's books with her 11-year-old grandson as her illustrator. After being retired from teaching, she has pursued her lifelong dream of writing books, and today she's going to share three techniques parents can implement for 100% reading engagement in their kids.

So listen in, folks. You can go and get her books on Amazon. They're titled The Adventures of Kona and King and Kona and King Rockin' the Holidays and Other Special Days. So stay tuned and learn how you can win a signed copy of each of Joanne's new books. So welcome to the show, Joanne Cooper. I'm so excited to have you here today to talk all things reading engagement, getting our kids interested in reading. And before we get started, I'd love for you to tell our listeners a little bit about your background and how your journey with Kona and King began. Well, thank you, Jackie. I'm delighted to be here. My journey began last March, right before COVID really struck hard here. I was looking for something to do, and I've always written rhymes. I'm a retired teacher, and I have over 20 years of experience, and I wrote educational rhymes for my students, which they absolutely love. Children love rhymes. But I can't draw. So I asked my grandson, who was then 11,

if he would like to collaborate with me and become my illustrator. And he happily agreed. I don't know what I would have done if he hadn't, because he's a great little artist. He's quite talented for then only 11 years old. So Conan King books were born then. They're my real life labs. So they're my inspiration for our first book, The Adventures of Conan King. And the second book is a bit frivolous and fanciful. It takes you through the holidays and special days with them.

And that's purely figment of my imagination. But the first book, just about everything that I wrote, all the verses that I wrote are based on my real life experiences with my labs. So that's how it began. We're about to celebrate our one year anniversary in July, July 18th for the launch of our first book. Well, congratulations on that. Thank you so much. Yeah, it's been a very fun ride and collaborating with my grandson is just precious memories we created. I've been interviewed on a local TV station, Colorado Springs.

And he told the reporter that I gave him the opportunity of a lifetime. Oh, I love it. Oh, that's so great. And you did.

That's so precious. Yes, I mean, I've always wanted to be the next Nora Roberts, but you know, I really don't have novels in me. So this is the next best thing to write children's books. Stick what I know.

I know rhyming. I'm a rhymer. I've written rhymes for years and years. I've written poems.

So I stick with what I know. Yes, for sure. That's always the best way to do it, too. Right.

It makes life a lot easier. And what what grades or what age groups did you teach? Well, all the way from preschool all the way up through eighth grade at various times during my my lengthy career. I specialized really in fourth grade. That was my my favorite grade, fourth, third, fourth grade.

But my last three years teaching, I taught sixth, seventh, and eighth reading intervention. I employed a lot of my 100% engagement techniques that I have with reading with those children and find they're quite beneficial. So I would like to share some with your parents. Yeah, that's exactly what we're going to do today.

100% reading engagement techniques. You have some tips and some ideas that parents can use to help get their kids engaged in reading. I'll just start by saying that parents need to read with their children, first of all, and ask questions as they go along. I think asking questions is so important because it engages them.

It stimulates their imaginations. It initiates conversations. And my book does that. That was one of the intents for my books.

after every rhyming verse, I ask questions and it's a perfect setup for parents. There, your questions are already there and just to stimulate their responses. And they're simple questions, but they're thinkers too. They have to think. And my vocabulary that I use is rich as well. I don't use a lot of baby language. I use really vibrant vocabulary. And that's another way parents can interact with their children for 100%. Engagement with their child. Ask them what the vocabulary needs. Talk about that. And that's an enrichment thing to do with your children.

Also, I'm a big proponent of whiteboards, any size whiteboards. I use whiteboards in my classes and children love to use whiteboards to write on. They can write sentences. They can write answers to questions. Little ones who cannot yet write, but they're listening to the story.

If a parent asks a question for engagement, they can draw something. They can draw a picture. So there's all kinds of ways to utilize whiteboards. I wish teachers around the country would have that be a tool in their classroom, whiteboards, because kids can, together, your whole class can write answers to any questions you might have on their whiteboards or do so many things. So whiteboards are important. Using different voices as you read with your children. It's really such a fun thing.

They'll love you to the moon and back. If you, you know, pretend to be a tiger, pretend to be an elephant or something, and they can be one too, if they're, if they're able to read. But I've always liked that technique too. You can whisper read. That's also kind of fun. You can just whisper. So those are three kinds of important reading with different voices, using whiteboards and asking questions. I think for a hundred percent engagement with your children, those are some really valuable tips and techniques. I would agree. I remember growing up, my mom was a daycare provider. There were five kids in our home and plus she did daycare. Plus we were the corner lot in our neighborhood. And so we'd have all the neighborhood kids over. And my mom used to teach,

she did a lot of reading with us at home, but also just that animation in her voice when she would change, you know, her voice for different characters, or she'd get us all around in a circle and then we'd do, let's go on a bear hunt, you know, and it would be just really interactive. She would make stories, the stories in the books come to life. And that's what you're reminding me of Joanne, when you're, when you're talking like this, of course I can see you, my listeners won't be able to see you, but you're reminding me very much of that. So, well, she did her job well, because that's, she was right on. That's a perfect reading technique to do with, with your children.

What does the whiteboard do that? Not only, I mean, you know, having the kids get up to go up to the whiteboard and are you talking about kids having individual whiteboards at their desk? Individual whiteboards. I mean, you can use a big whiteboard, but individual ones with markers. So that if you ask a question, and here's another thing too, writing and reading go hand in hand.

So they're not only answering your question, but they're writing it. So they're getting practice in that very valuable skill of just writing and writing in a complete sentence. So I always had my my students write in complete sentences, or if you have a big whiteboard, they might want to go up and draw something, or they might just want to write their answer on a big board. But, but those little whiteboards to me are really handy. And they're, you know, they fit in their hands and children love markers. What child does not love? Oh, for sure. Put a marker in a child's hand.

Oh my gosh. They'll love you forever. Absolutely. And I also love that you said that ask the questions. What, give us some examples of some of the things that some of the questions you would ask your kids that are more general, obviously, varies depending on the book.

Well, you know what, I can look at one of my books. I talk about my pups chomping on crispy carrots and yummy apples and cheese, raising their paws for high fives the way they say please. And then at the end, I say, what luscious foods do you love to eat? What special snacks are delectable treats?

So there we have questions that they can answer either verbally or on the whiteboard or draw what foods they like. And then you have the word luscious and delectable. There opens up vocabulary and enrichment for the vocabulary. That's what my books do. You have these questions.

I have a verse about, this actually happened, some quail, baby quail. A mama laid eggs in our strawberry patch one summer, believe it or not. So these little baby quail hatched and I was wondering, well, what's going to happen to them? I have dogs in the yard, you know, if they try to escape. But somehow, when I bring the labs in for the night, somehow those darling baby quail slipped out of sight for in the morning, not a single baby was left behind. What escape route did they find? Here we go. Here's your imagination. How did those baby quail escape from the yard?

I don't know. All I know is they did because I didn't see them. That's kind of fun. Oh, I love that. Do you do you get any feedback? Or have you gotten any feedback so far from people who have read the books? I've had wonderful feedback. I do promote on Facebook, I put little promotions for my books, and I put videos of my dogs doing cute things, things like that.

But it was just a dream of mine. It was just realizing a dream of mine and having my my grandson be a partner in that dream. I think that is so incredibly cool. Yeah, I get a lot of feedback from people who like the story, like the grandson, grandmother, you know, and I say to, hey, you know, follow your dreams. If I can do it as a grandmother, you can too. And I've had people who actually write to me and, you know, send me messages saying, gee, I'd like to be a writer.

I'd like to write children's books, you know, and I said, I'll give you tips. Just ask me any questions. So I'd be glad to share all the, you know, it had pitfalls, but it was a, but it was a fun journey when I look back at it. We were interviewed by our local newspaper and we made the front page and things like that. And the reviews that I get on Amazon, you know, where I sell my books have been very positive. So it's been an exciting journey.

Are there more books in the works? Well, I have one in mind, a third book, possibly. I work on it from time to time. Just, you know, I keep my mind active by doing all these things. So possibly we'll see down the road. Also, as an added bonus, I tell people if anyone sends me a picture of them reading my books, create special rhymes for those people. And I post on Facebook with their permission. And people seem to just really love that a lot. Oh my gosh. That's what I do. I write, I write special rhymes for the special people who purchase my books.

And they're really, they're cute. Some people send me videos of their, I had one of a gal sent me a video of her, her nine year old reading to her little brothers. And it was adorable. And then, then I create a special rhyme on Facebook and I always post only with people's permission, but people love it.

They absolutely love it. And I love to, I love to do it. So I get inspiration from those cute little faces reading my books. I love it.

I think that's so great. So we're going to, the three tips you gave, ask questions, use whiteboards, and then be animated, use different voices, even a whisper voice or an excited voice or a sad voice, all that, right? Any animal voice. Asking questions and asking what the words mean, what they think they mean.

Yeah. Yeah. That's so great. Any ideas on getting your kids even to sit down and read a book with you?

You know, any other tips that you have for parents and making reading fun? I think you need to zero in on an interest. That's why I picked my lovable labs because most children I find love dogs. They love pooches.

They love the canine kids. And I even do some videos where I have my lab sit in front of me and I do a Conan King canine story time. And I read them excerpts from our books. It's kind of funny.

You know, sometimes they sit there, sometimes they wander away, but that's okay. But yeah, just to find an interest. And so I find kids love rhymes. My students went crazy over my rhymes to make grammar, for example, more interesting.

Okay. And things like that. And I love history. And I taught Colorado history and I'd write plays and things and rhymes about Colorado history.

but find an interest, I would say. And why do you think that is that kids like the rhyming so much? Is it, I mean, I think it's great for memorization. Memorization, but I think they like the kind of cadence of it, you know, the rhythm of it, almost sing-songy, you know, and they can actually, you can rap it. My books, my books lend themselves to, you know, kids love rap or just to kind of have a sing-songy effect, or they can even dance. They can even move. And that's what I did with my classes too. When we did the rhymes, we moved, did any kind of movement with it. And that's what you can do with these kinds of books. And I think that's why they love rhymes. Plus it's short.

You know, it's easy. My verses are pretty short, six to eight lines long. And then I ask usually one or two questions at the end. So they move along. My books move along and I think they're interesting uh the escapades and the antics of of my frisbee labs are it's entertaining not only educational my books with uh rich vocabulary kids kids like the antics and they laugh at at the funny things the dogs might do i dress them up in halloween costumes for halloween and santa dog visits them on christmas eve you know and it's just i like i said i let i let my the second book my imagination was on overdrive, shall I say. Well, that's fun. And you sound like you'd be a very fun grandma. So that's, that's extra, extra cool for your grandson. And how, how is he taking this all in? You said he was pretty flattered when he got to do the news story, but. Yes. And he's,

because I, I have him autograph books from time to time because I do some giveaways. I do some contest too. You know, my next contest coming up is going to celebrate our one year anniversary. So I'm going to put a whole bunch of milk bone dog treats in a bowl, and I'm going to have people guess. And the ones who, one who guesses close to, or maybe exactly, wins my autograph books.

So he, he likes it. He, we, we became minor celebrities in our little community, especially when we made the front page of our little local newspaper. That was pretty interesting. And our interview, he loved our interview.

So he does enjoy it when I have him autograph the books. And I enjoy the nice compliments people leave me about the books and the enjoyment their children have derived from them. So that's worth it to me. That alone, I take a lot of pleasure in just knowing that people are enjoying what I've done.

And then I've written, I've actually written two books. Well, I just think it's absolutely so great. What a memory you have made. I hope there's more books to come.

I hope so too. I've got them in my head. I just need to get them on paper. Well, and we're all going to look forward to that.

Thank you so much, Joanne. Thank you, Jackie. I appreciate it. Oh, I absolutely love the story of this grandmother and grandson who have collaborated to create these books.

I ordered the books myself. I've read them. They're absolutely super fun, engaging. I love the questions that they ask that you can ask your kids.

And if you'd like to be entered into a drawing to win a copy, a signed copy of The Adventures of Kona and King or a signed copy of Kona and King, Rockin' the Holidays and other special days, all you need to do is like this episode and say, pick me. And I will pick a winner at the end of July and I will send you that signed copy of one of those books. So there's going to be two winners. For now, parents, hugs and high fives.

You got this. Thank you.