Kelsey, Thanks for your cheers here! And my apologies for the belated reply. Not sure where you are, but here in Ohio, it's all derecho and damage...and no power. So just back online to receive your note thanks to a generator that's offering up a portion of the necessities.

The "how" I cooked up these activities is pretty simple to answer, but I really want to suggest is that 100 is just a number since, in fact, every session with young children creates new activities. What I'm hoping to do—and what my professional development sessions are all about—is creating a mindset. A playfulness. A willingness to utilize those moments...KNOWING that you already have in mind the kinds of outcomes and patterns and concepts you want to suggest or reinforce. I mean to pass the cheers back to you: You're with young children. You're aware of their particular interests, skills, skill needs...and you're turned into the environment and opportunities in which you find yourself and your young pre-readers. So, the upshot: "my" 100 activities weren't meant to be followed or replicated exactly. So there are hundreds of other ideas that you might think of—ought to think of!—as you're flipping through the pages, as you're spending time with kids.

But to answer your question directly, under the visionary auspices of the Ohio Children's Foundation, I conducted a series of experiences with caregivers and their young children at a variety of institutions over a period of months. Facilitators from each community helped to present the material. That feedback, those responses, in combination with interviews and visits with a few dozen reading- reading-recovery-, pre-school teachers, and early-childhood administrators—all that information was just the fodder I needed to create the book. Then I think I banked on my many years of being a camp counselor as much as being an author of many children's books. Great fun...in the name of very vital work!

Thanks for your generous comment, MJR

Hello, Angel from me and my Aus cattle dog/border collie, also named Angel. Indeed, Angel has gone on many visits to day care centers and preschools to jump into the pre-reading activities offered in my book. So let me at least answer part of your questions and try not to go on at too much length. (I do appreciate your situation there presents a variety of challenges.)
So...I tell the kids that my dog reads. And I start by having a kid make a letter with her kibble. So there's an foot-long "A" on the carpet. I tell the kids how Angel knows the alphabet, and ask her to make another letter. So she nibbles away a few kibble (she pauses to chew and I whisper "wait"), and the kids recognize a "P" or a "V"...
And then she eats a few more, and we have a "U" or an "F"...especially if I ask a kid, "Can you move ONE kibble and make another letter?"
They love it. Then we make letters with her leash. Looping this way or that way, one kid forms a letter, say, a "P," and then another kid flops it over and makes a little "b." Again, the question is, "What letter can you make by moving just one end of the leash?" So all the orthographic recognition of letters is clearly shown...and enjoyed.
Other impromptu ideas (and that IS the whole point!): I spelled A / N / G / E / L on Post-its, one letter per note. And we scrambled the letters, rearranged the letters, and then figured out what parts of her body started with each letter (Abdomen, Nose, Grin, Ear, Leg)...and posted the stickers on her. (Oh, yes, she is a very abiding dog!) Then I took Post-Its for the letters of other kids' names and posted them on Angel...and then removed the stickers and we found words on a kids' body for all the sticker letters.
So, what I'm suggesting is that YOU, ME, AND THE ABCs was designed just for home visits and preK kids. The Ohio Children's Foundation—they sponsored the creation and development of this book—does just this: kindergarten teachers visit homes of their incoming kids during the summer, bring them a backpack of goodies that include this book, and generally help both parent and child see the start of school as a bit less unfamiliar or unknown.
Check out the preview pages that you'll find on the right side of this page and see if the book won't serve your particular needs. I wish you all the best with your community! Brava!

I appreciate your question, Linda, and I know precisely what you mean. Some grown-ups simply feel inhibited, self-conscious, silly, or even intimidated by reading aloud. (And you're appropriately enlarging this problem to include all kinds of "reading activities" such as those featured in YOU, ME, AND THE ABCs.) So what's the hold up with these parents?
Let's ask it the other way. Let's say I'm a parent with a kid who just loves swimming or baseball, while I'm not comfortable in water, not particularly adroit when it comes to ball-playing skills. (Could be that my own childhood experiences or my own less positive school activities have shaped this reluctance.) What could I do if, as with reading, I KNEW this practice was central to a kid's development, a kid's ability to succeed inside and outside of school?
The first thing that comes to mind is to just admit it—to myself and to my young reader—and have fun with it! Just abandon myself. Enjoy the fumbling or the mistakes. And let's face it: Kids are not the harshest critics! They'll simply love the time and attention of reading together. And, what's one of a young child's favorite kinds of humor: mistakes! Watching or hearing things that are wrong. So, skip over something, say the wrong word or letter sound—and just enjoy that interaction. Literacy is less about instruction and more about practice. Just everyday chances to use language.
In creating the 100 activities in this book, my very goal was to reach that parent you're describing, that grown-up who might shrug off these literacy experiences with their youngsters because, well, they think the exercises might require some special knowledge or programmatic approach. There might be a right or wrong way to do each thing. The activities could be too time-consuming or require lots of preparation.
Just the opposite! I want that parent to feel that engaging a kid in these pre-reading and reading experiences is something that can be done on the fly, anywhere, with whatever is on hand. I wrote the activities in the book as springboards to encourage improvisation and spontaneity.
I hope that by stressing that reading activities can be playful, enjoyable, unstructured, "portable," and mostly just a commitment to sharing and modeling the simple foundations of listening, speaking, writing, and reading, any parent can enjoy such experiences.
And, as we all know, there is an aspect of parenting that simply boils down to...sorry, but it's your responsibility to GET comfortable. Force yourself! Or find others who can pitch in if you can't. It's a part of bringing up a child. (A very lucky part!) To help a child into the world's limitless knowledge, beauty, humor, detail, mystery....

Hi, Suzanne,
Thank you so much for the cheering-on of the good cause. Much appreciated.
So...I'm all for any sort of technology...as long as it's not a chance for the grown-ups to go off on their own, assuming the gizmo or program or whatever will occupy the child. I'm a firm believer in the idea of "you must be present to win!" lol
So, sure, bring on the iPads and apps and anything else that offers up language, learning, and so forth...as long as there's an adult sharing in that opportunity. Sharing in the experience. Framing the interaction with broader perspective. Then it can be valuable. On its own—a kid left on his/her own? as if the computer or game were a tech-sitter for the youngster—not so much. I appreciate that certain skills can be put forth and accessed or assessed. But beyond the ding or boing or flash, what's going to make that experience go beyond the "mastery" of the program itself? Nada. Zip. Zero.
Language, reading, conversation, listening, speaking: they are all exchanges. They are all social interchanges between individuals. And that, I believe, is the necessary process and interaction. Not replacements for interaction. Not things that allow grown-ups to bow out and allow kids to spiral in a self-absorption that provides too little in terms of hearing, speaking, sharing, expressing, engaging.
Suzanne, I agree that screen time, especially for very young children, may be useful in terms of developing comfort with keyboard, orienting with electronic media, etc., but it's no substitute for the core "curriculum" that is communication among humans. Expressing, articulating, reacting, reasoning, appreciating...these are the real values of early literacy. We are helping young children find themselves, find their way in the world. And that's a world occupied by readers, thinkers, listeners, speakers—fellow beings, not apps.
Bless you for raising this important point!
Michael

Thanks for your comment, Julia. Agreed, agreed. Showing that you love reading, sharing books, reading aloud, and so forth, is an inspiration for young children who are only too eager to imitate what grown-ups do, to pretend to follow suit. So your enthusiasm and passion cast reading in that Very Important Light that Pooh himself would have appreciated.
I also want to underscore your idea of carrying a book's content into the world outside the book. That could be repeating a new word, continuing a rhyming sound, alluding to a character's behavior, whatever! That way, young pre-readers see elements of reading and comprehension referenced and reinforced by their everyday activities.
Thank you again! And best to you and your "Littles."

Hello, Dana. And thanks for posting. What I "hear" in the "Read Everyday" mantra is the idea that reading should be a practice. A discipline. A regular thing...even when it might not be exactly convenient. So, it's like exercise. Or maintaining a healthy diet. Parents, I believe, should have a mindfulness about reading to a child. An orientation that commits to the regular practice of this vital exchange.
That said, I hear you, Dana. Drilling skills? Reading aloud as if you were some call-center employee rattling off that gobbledygook about annual percentage rates and early termination and blah blah blah...yeah, that will certainly excite a young reader!
You're spot on: Grown-ups need to engage their young charges by tailoring the content. What is that child's current (how fleeting!) fascination? Find those books. Ask a librarian for help.
Moreover, encourage the idea that reading need not be age-appropriate picture books only. It's critical that reading be applied to the everyday experiences kids have. Grocery store packages. Billboards. Electronic devices. Menues. Newspapers. Encourage the idea that all of these present opportunities for easy, informal, ready-to-share moments for supporting literacy.
Thanks for all the good work you're doing, MJR