If Only the Bears Had Left a Note: Growing Up Writing

"If Only the Bears Had Left a Note" delivers parents with bunches of ideas that will help your child experiment with letters and words. You will find powerful ideas to encourage and empower your child's growth as a literate being. No workbooks are needed! All you need are paper and pencils or crayons― depending on how much you value your wall paper!

Now, more than ever, it's a parent's job to participate in their children's growth as a reader and writer. It doesn't have to be hard; it can be a lot of fun!

Enjoy the opportunity of sharing writing and reading while creating memories. Writing and reading opportunities should be empowering, not clouded by workbooks and judgment.

Chris Rathkey taught primary age children in Phoenix for 35 years. She has a master's degree from the University of Arizona and has won several awards for outstanding teaching. She taught teachers at Arizona State University and in numerous other cities by means of her videotaped teaching shown at professional development sessions. How lucky you are to be able to learn from Chris Rathkey's brilliant, innovative yet imminently sensible, well-grounded advice!

It's been almost four decades since I first saw Chris Rathkey (then Chris Boyd) teaching; almost four decades since I introduced my teacher preparation students to her kindergarten classroom to see what truly extraordinary teaching looks like. I've videotaped her teaching and used these videos so master teachers around North America could learn from them.

I've seen researchers and university professors from around the world visit her classroom to learn from how she taught very young learners. And today, I get to do what she does not do―act as her press agent, because, as my grandmother used to say, "she doesn't toot her own horn."

Chris Rathkey's ability to turn children on to literacy is legendary. Year after year, her kindergarten students grew by leaps and bounds as writers. How did she do that? By doing what she writes about in this book (If Only the Bears Had Left a Note). She refuses to underestimate children or to overwhelm them or to short circuit their independence. She combines her deep understanding of literacy with her keen sense of practicality. She respects children's thinking and knows how to lead them to think more deeply. She inspires them, through very deliberate ways of speaking that she describes in this book, to grow as thinkers and writers. The result is that, with purpose and intention, she brings written language along into daily life as she loves, plays with, and guides children.

Carole Edelsky
Ph.D., Professor Emerita, Arizona State University