Hooway For Wodney Wat

Summary of Book: Hooway for Wodney Wat is written by. This story follows a rat named Rodney who has a speech disability and cannot pronounce the /r/ sound. In the beginning of the story he is mercilessly teased by his fellow classmates. In the story a new student enters the class. Camilla Capybara is smarter, meaner, and stronger than any of the other students. She is a bully that scares all the rodents and nobody can stand up to her. One day though for recess, Wodney Wat is chosen to be the leader of the game Simon Says. So Wodney starts to say instructions such as "wake the leaves" instead of "rake the leaves" and Camilla Capybara begins to "wake" the leaves while all of the others rake them. The game follows in this matter with Wodney building his confidence as the rest of the rodents back him and start to laugh at Camilla's antics. By the last order, Wodney has come out of his jacket and is yelling confidently. His final order is, "Simon Says go west!" And while all of the other rodents rest, Camilla heads west and they never see her again.

Why you would/would not use this book in your classroom? I would use this book in my classroom because it is a great way of introducing the subject of disabilities, but portraying it in a positive way and as though it is a good thing instead of a negative thing.

Appropriate age group for this book: 3-7

Ideas for unit of study to include this book or how you might use this book in the classroom: A way this story could be incorporated into the classroom is to introduce the concept of Venn Diagrams and then do a Venn Diagram of Camilla and Wodney comparing their character traits and personalities.

Comments

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