A lovely book with few words about friendship that offers many opportunities to discuss the feelings of the characters. I read somewhere that talking about the emotions of the characters in a story (reading dialogically) increase comprehension a great deal. On the first page you see the goose(duck?) and just the back of the polar bear. (I didn't really show them the cover first) We had several guesses about what that was- a bear, a polar bear, an otter, a monster. "Learning to predict and anticipate is a great way to foster narrative skills ." 

- Jane Corry

I read Treasure by Suzanne Bloom in preschool storytime too. We started off with an alphabet book (using the foam letters), and then sang a song about the letters, so we were talking a lot about letters. We read the book and talked about what an "x" on a map means. Then I passed out large sheets of paper and markers and we all made treasure maps with an "x" on them. While the kids were drawing, I walked (crawled, really) around, helping them all make an X on their map. Then I said, "while you're off on your treasure hunts today, see if you can find some letters. Pointing out letters throughout your day is a great way to build letter knowledge. 

- Brianne Williams